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S.F-, A-jf fa)

EX BIBLIOTHECA

COLLECTED WORKS

THE RIGHT HON. F. MAX MULLER

xviii

LAST ESS A KS

II. ESSAYS ON THE SCIENCE
OF RELIGION

LAST ESSAYS

BY THE

Right Hon. Professor F. MAX MULLER, K.M.

LATE FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE

SECOND SERIES

ESSAYS ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1901

[. A/l rights reserved ]

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PREFACE

In the preface to the First Series of my
father’s Last Essays, I expressed the hope that
I should be able, at the expiration of a year
from the date of publication of the last of his
articles on the Religions of China, to bring out
a further volume of his Essays not hitherto
republished.

Thanks to the kindness of the editors of the
various reviews in which these articles first
appeared, I am enabled to offer to the public
a Second Series of Last Essays, dealing exclu-
sively with subjects connected with the Science
of Religion, the favourite study of my father
during the latter part of his literary career.

But besides this obligation to the editors of
the Nineteenth Century and other periodicals,
I am further indebted to the kindness of Mr.
Archibald Douglas, who not only gave me
permission to include his article on his visit
to the Monastery of Himis in connexion with
Notovitch’s Unknown Life of Christ, but also

PREFACE.

supplied me with a supplementary note giving-
further details of his investigations.

The essay on Ancient Prayers has never, as
far as I can ascertain, been published before.
On looking through my father’s papers I dis-
covered it among several unfinished essays, and
as it was apparently ready for press I have
included it in the present volume.

The last essay, c Is Man Immortal ? ’ has also
never been published in England, though it
appeared in several American newspapers some
years ago under the auspices of the American
Press Association. I am very grateful to
that Association for supplying me with the
manuscript which enables me to give it here
as originally written. I have placed this article
at the end of the volume, as it seemed to me
that, whether they agree with its reasoning or
not, every reader of my father’s writings will
feel that the last paragraph forms a beautiful
ending to his literary work, a fitting farewell
to the world which he was always trying to
instruct and improve.

W. G. Max Muller.

San Sebastian,

October 12, 1901.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Forgotten Bibles (1884) 1

Ancient Prayers ......... 36

Indian Fables and Esoteric Buddhism (1893) . . . 79

Esoteric Buddhism (a Reply by Mr. A. P. Sinnett) . 1 34

Esoteric Buddhism (a Rejoinder) . . . . .156

The Alleged Sojourn of Christ in India (1894). . . 171

Statement of the Chief Lama of Himis, by Mr. J. A.

Douglas . . . . . . , . .184

Postscript by F. M. M 202

Supplementary Note by Mr. J. A. Douglas . . . 203

The Kutho-Daw (1895) 210

Buddha’s Birthplace (1898) 231

Mohammedanism and Christianity (1894) .... 240

The Religions of China (1900) : —

(1) Confucianism 259

(2) Taoism . . . . . . . . . .278

(3) Buddhism and Christianity 300

The Parliament of Religions at Chicago (1894) . . .324

Why I am not an Agnostic (1894) ..... 346

Is Man Immortal ? 357

LAST ESSAYS.

FORGOTTEN BIBLES \

THE first series of Translations of the Sacred
Books of the East 2, consisting of twenty-four
volumes, is nearly finished, and a second series, which
is to comprise as many volumes again, is fairly started.
Even when that second series is finished, there will
be enough material left for a third, and fourth series,
and though I shall then long have ceased from my
labours as editor, I rejoice to think that the reins
when they drop out of my hands will be taken up
and held by younger, stronger, and abler conductors.

I ought indeed to be deeply grateful to all who
have helped me in this arduous, and, as it seemed at
first, almost hopeless undertaking. 'VV'here will you
get the Oriental scholars, I was asked, willing to give
up their time to what is considered the most tedious
and the most ungrateful task, translating difficult
texts that have never been translated before, and not
being allowed to display one scrap of recondite learn-
ing in long notes and essays, or to skip one single
passage, however corrupt or unintelligible ?

1 Nineteenth Century , June, 1884.

2 Forty-eight volumes are now printed. — Ed.

IT.

LAST ESSAYS.

And if you should succeed in assembling such a
noble army of martyrs, where in these days will you
find the publisher to publish twenty-four or forty-
eight portly volumes, volumes which are meant to
be studied, not to be skimmed, which will never be
ordered by Mudie or Smith, and which conscientious
reviewers may find it easier to cut up than to cut
open ?

It was no easy matter, as I well knew, to find
either enthusiastic scholars or enthusiastic publishers,
but I did not despair, because I felt convinced that
sooner or later such a collection of translations of the
Fathers of the Universal Church would become an
absolute necessity. My hope was at first that some
very rich men who are tired of investing their money,
would come forward to help in this undertaking, but
though they seem willing to help in digging up
mummies in Egypt or oyster-shells in Denmark, they
evidently do not think that much good could come
from digging up the forgotten Bibles of Buddhists or
Fire-worshippers. I applied to learned Societies and
Academies, but, of course, they had no disposable
funds. At last the Imperial Academy of Vienna-
all honour be to it — was found willing to lend a
helping hand. But in 1875, just when I had struck
my tent at Oxford to settle in Austria, the then
Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, and the
Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Liddell, brought their
combined influence and power of persuasion to bear
on the Indian Council and the University Press at
Oxford. The sinews of war were found for at least
twenty-four volumes. In October, 1876, the under-
taking was started, and, if all goes well, in October,

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

1884, the first series of twenty-four volumes will
stand on the shelves of every great library in Europe,
America, and India. And more than that. Such
has been the interest taken in this undertaking by
the students of ancient language, religion, and philo-
sophy, that even the unexpected withdrawal of the
patronage of the India Office under Lord Salisbury’s
successor1 could not endanger the successful continua-
tion of this enterprise, at least during the few years
that I may still be able to conduct it.

But while personally I rejoice that all obstacles
which were placed in our way, sometimes from a
quarter where we least expected it, have been
removed, and that with the generous assistance of
some of the best Oriental scholars of our age, some
at least of the most important works illustrating the
ancient religions of the East have been permanently
rescued from oblivion and rendered accessible to every
man who understands English, some of my friends,
men whose judgement I value far higher than my own,
wonder what ground there is for rejoicing. Some,
more honest than the rest, told me that they had been
great admirers of ancient Oriental wisdom till they
came to read the translations of the Sacred Books of
the East. They had evidently expected to hear the
tongues of angels, and not the babbling of babes.
But others took higher ground. What, they asked,
could the philosophers of the nineteenth century
expect to learn from the thoughts and utterances of
men who had lived one, two, three, or four thousand
years ago? When I humbly suggested that these

1 The expense of the Second Series has been entirely defrayed
by the Oxford University Press.— Ed.

LAST ESSAYS.

books bad a purely historical interest, and that the
history of religion could be studied from no other
documents, I was told that since Comte’s time it was
perfectly known how religion arose, and through how
many stages it had to pass in its development from
fetishism to positivism, and that whatever facts might
be found in the Sacred Books of the East, they must
all vanish before theories which, like all Comtian
theories, are infallible and incontrovertible. If any-
thing more was to be discovered about the origin and
nature of religion, it was not from dusty historical
documents, but from psycho-physiological experiments,
or possibly from the creeds of living savages.

I was not surprised at these remarks. I had heard
similar remarks many years ago, and they only
convinced me that the old antagonism between the
historical and theoretical schools of thought was as
strong to-day as ever. This antagonism applies not
only to the study of religion, but likewise to the study
of language, mythology, and philosophy, in fact of all
the subjects to which my own labours have more
specially been directed for many years, and I therefore
gladly seize this opportunity of clearly defining once
for all the position which I have deliberately chosen
from the day that I was a young recruit to the time
when I have become a veteran in the noble army of
research.

There have been, and there probably always will be,
two schools of thought, the Historical and the Theore-
tical. Whether by accident or by conviction I have
been through life a follower of the Historical School,
a school which in the study of every branch of human
knowledge has but one and the same principle,

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

namely, 1 Lecvrn to understand what is by learning to
understand what has been.'

That school was in the ascendent when I began
life. It was then represented in Germany by such
names as Niebuhr for history, Savigny for law, Bopp
for language, Grimm for mythology ; or, to mention
more familiar names, in Trance by Cuvier for natural
history ; in England by a whole school of students of
history and nature, who took pride in calling them-
selves the only legitimate representatives of the
Baconian school of thought.

W hat a wonderful change has come over us during
the last thirty or forty years ! The Historical School
which, in the beginning of our century, was in the
possession of nearly all professorial chairs, and wielded
the sceptre of all the great Academies, has almost
dwindled away, and its place has been taken by the
Theoretical School, best known in England by its
eloquent advocacy of the principles of evolution.
This Theoretical School is sometimes called the
synthetic , in opposition to the Historical School,
which is analytic. It is also characterized as con-
structive, or as reasoning a priori. In order to
appreciate fully the fundamental difference between
the two schools, let us see how their principles have
been applied to such subjects as the science of language,
religion, or antiquities.

The Historical School, in trying to solve the
problem of the origin and growth of language, takes
language as it finds it. It takes the living language
in its various dialects, and traces each word back
from century to century, until from the English now
spoken in the streets, we arrive at the Saxon of

LAST ESSAYS.

Alfred, the Old Saxon of the Continent, and the
Gothic of Ulfilas, as spoken on the Danube in the
fifth century. Even here we do not stop. For
finding that Gothic is hut a dialect of the great
Teutonic stem of language, that Teutonic again is
but a dialect of the great Aryan family of speech, we
trace Teutonic and its collateral branches, Greek,
Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, Persian, and Sanskrit, back
to that Proto-Aryan form of speech which contained
the seeds of all we now see before us, as germs, plants,
flowers, fruits in the languages of the Aryan race.

After having settled this historical outline of the
growth of our family of speech, the Aryan, we take
any word, or a hundred, or a thousand words, and
analyse them, or take them to pieces. That words
can be taken to pieces, every grammar teaches us,
though the process of taking them to pieces scienti-
fically and correctly, dissecting limb from limb, is
often as difficult and laborious as any anatomical
preparation. Well, let us take quite a modern word—
the American cute, sharp. We all know that cute is
only a shortening of acute, and that acute is the
Latin acutus, sharp. In acutus, again, we easily
recognize the frequent derivative his, as in cornutus,
horned, from cornu, horn. This leaves us acu, as in
cicu-s, a needle. In this word the u can again he
separated, for we know it is a very common deriva-
tive, in such words as pec-u, cattle, Sanskrit pasti,
from PA S, to tether ; or tanu, thin, Greek ravv, Lat.
tenu-i-s, from TAN, to stretch. Thus we arrive in
the end at AK, and here our analysis must stop, for
if we were to divide AIv into A and Iv, we should get.
as even Plato knew (Theaetetws, 205), mere letters, and

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

no longer significant sounds or syllables. Now what
is this AK ? We call it a root, which is, of course,
a metaphor only. What we mean hy calling it a root
is that it is the residuum of our analysis, and a
residuum which itself resists all further analysis.
But what is important is that it is not a mere theoretic
postulate, but a fact, an historical fact, and at the
same time an ultimate fact.

With these ultimate facts, that is, with a limited
number of predicative syllables, to which every word
in any of the Aryan languages can be traced back,
or, as we may also express it, from which every word
in these languages can be derived, the historical
school of comparative philology is satisfied, at least
to a certain extent ; for it has also to account for
certain pronouns and adverbs and prepositions, which
are not derived from predicative, but from demon-
strative roots, and which have supplied, at the same
time, many of those derivative elements, like tus
in acu-tus, which we generally call suffixes or
terminations.

After this analysis is finished, the historical student
has done his work. AK, he says, conveys the concept
of sharp, sharpness, being sharp or pointed. How it
came to do that we cannot tell, or, at least, we cannot
find out by historical analysis. But that it did so,
we can prove by a number of words derived from
AK in Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic,
and Teutonic speech. For instance : Sanskrit asu,
quick (originally sharp), Greek wkvs, Lat. oc-ior, Lat.
ac-er , eager, acus, acuo, acies, acumen ; Greek;
the highest point, our edge, A.-S. ecg ; also to egg on ;
aKcov, a javelin, acidus, sharp, bitter, ague, a sharp

LAST ESSAYS.

fever, ear of corn, Old High German ahir, Gothic aks,
Lat. acus , aceris, husk of grain, and many more.

Let us now look at the Theoretical School and its
treatment of language. How could language arise?
it says ; and it answers, Why, we see it every day.
We have only to watch a child, and we shall see that
a child utters certain sounds of pain and joy, and
very soon after imitates the sounds which it hears.
It says Ah ! when it is surprised or pleased ; it soon
says Baa ! when it sees a lamb, and Bow-wow ! when
it sees a dog. Language, we are told, could not arise
in any other way ; so that interjections and imitations
must be considered as the ultimate, or rather the
primary facts of language, while their transition into
real words is, we are assured, a mere question of time.

This theory seems to be easily confirmed by a
number of words in all languages, which still exhibit
most clearly the signs of such an origin; and still
further, by the fact that these supposed rudiments of
human speech exist, even at an earlier stage, in the
development of animal life, namely, in the sounds
uttered by many animals ; though, curiously enough,
far more fully and frequently by our most distant
ancestors, the birds, than by our nearest relation,
the ape.

It is not surprising, therefore, that all who believe
in a possible transition from an ape to a man should
gladly have embraced this theory of language. The
only misfortune is that such a theory, though it easily
explains words which really require no explanation,
such as crashing, cracking, creaking, crunching,
scrunching, leaves us entirely in the lurch when we
come to deal with real words — I mean words expressive

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

of general concepts, such as man, tree, name, law — in
fact, nine-tenths of our dictionary.

I certainly do not wish to throw unmerited contempt
on this Theoretical School. Far from it. We want
the theorist quite as much as the historian. The one
must check the other, nay, even help the other, just
as every government wants an opposition to keep it
in order, or, I ought perhaps to say, to give it from
time to time new life and vigour. I only wished to
show by an example or two, what is the real differ-
ence between these two schools, and what I meant
when I said that, whether by temperament, or by
education, or by conviction, I myself had always
belonged to the Historical School.

Take now the science of religion, and we shall find
again the same difference of treatment between the
historian and the theorist.

The theorist begins by assuring us that all men
were originally savages, or, to use a milder term,
children. Therefore, if we wish to study the origin
of religion, we must study children and savages.

Now at the present moment some savages in Africa,
Australia, and elsewhere are supposed to be fetish-
worshippers. Therefore we are assured that five
thousand or ten thousand years ago religion must
have begun with a worship of fetishes — that is, of
stones, and shells, and sticks, and other inanimate
objects.

Again, children are very apt not only to beat their
dolls, but even to punish a chair or a table if they
have hurt themselves against it. This shows that
they ascribe life and personality — nay, something like
human nature — to inanimate objects, and hence we

LAST ESSAYS.

are told that savages would naturally do the same.
A savage, in fact, is made to do everything that an
anthropologist wishes him to do ; but, even then, the
question of all questions, why he does what he is
supposed to do, is never asked. We are told that he
Avorships a stone as his god, but how he came to
possess the idea of God, and to predicate it of the
stone, is called a metaphysical question of no interest
to the student of anthropology — that is, of man. If,
however, we press for an answer to this all-important
question, we are informed that animism, personifica-
tion, and anthropomorphism are the three well-known
agencies which fully account for the fact that the
ancient inhabitants of India, Greece, and Italy believed
that there was life in the rivers, the mountains, and
the sky ; that the sun, and the moon, and the dawn
were cognizant of the deeds of men, and, finally, that
Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Venus, had the form and
the beauty, the feelings and passions of men. We
might as well be told that all animals are hungry
because they have an appetite.

We read in many of the most popular works of
the day how, from the stage of fetishism, there
was a natural and necessary progress to polytheism,
monotheism, and atheism, and after these stages have
been erected one above the other, all that remains
is to fill each staije with illustrations taken from
every race that ever had a religion, whether these
races were ancient or modern, savage or civilized,
genealogically related to each other, or perfect
strangers.

Again, I must guard most decidedly against being
supposed to wish to throw contempt or ridicule on

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

this school. Far from it. I differ from it ; I have no
taste for it ; I also think it is often very misleading.
But to compare the thoughts and imaginations of
savages and civilized races, of the ancient Egyptians,
for instance, and the modern Hottentots, has its value,
and the boldest combinations of the Theoretic School
have sometimes been confirmed in the most unexpected
manner by historical research.

Let us see now how the Historical School goes to
work in treating of the origin and growth of religion.
It begins by collecting all the evidence that is
accessible, and classifies it. First of all, religions are
divided into those that have sacred books, and those
that have not. Secondly, the religions which can be
studied in books of recognized or canonical authority,
are arranged genealogically. The New Testament is
traced back to the Old, the Koran to both the New
and Old Testaments. This gives us one class of
religions, the Semitic.

Then, again, the sacred books of Buddhism, of
Zoroastrianism, and of Brahmanism are classed together
as Aryan, because they all draw their vital elements
from one and the same Proto-Aryan source. This
gives us a second class of religions, the Aryan.

Outside the pale of the Semitic and Aryan religions,
we have the two book-religions of China, the old
national traditions collected by Confucius, and the
moral and metaphysical system of Lao-tse. This
gives us a class of Turanian religions. The study
of those religions which have sacred books is in some
respects eas}’-, because we have in these books
authoritative evidence on which our further reasonings
and conclusions can be safely based. But, in other

LAST ESSAYS.

respects, the very existence of these books creates
new difficulties, because, after all, religions do not
live in books only, but in human hearts, and where
we have to deal with Vedas, and Avestas, and
Tripitakas, Old and New Testaments, and Korans,
we are often tempted into taking the book for the
religion.

Still the study of book-religions, if we once have
mastered their language, admits, at all events, of more
definite and scientific treatment than that of native
religions which have no books, no articles, no tests,
no councils, no pope. Any one who attempts to
describe the religion of the ancient Greeks and
Romans — I mean their real faith, not their mythology,
their ceremonial, or their philosophy — knows the
immense difficulty of such a task. And yet we have
here a large literature, spread over many centuries,
we know their language, we can even examine the
ruins of their temples.

Think after that, how infinitely greater must be
the difficulty of forming a right conception, say,
of the religion of the Red Indians, the Africans, the
Australians. Their religions are probably as old as
their languages, that is, as old as our own language ;
but we know nothing of their antecedents, nothing
but the mere surface of to-day, and that immense
surface explored in a few isolated spots only, and
often by men utterly incapable of understanding the
language and the thoughts of the people. And yet
we are asked to believe by the followers of the
Theoretic School that this mere surface detritus is in
reality the granite that underlies all the religions
of the ancient world, more primitive than the Old

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

Testament, more intelligible than the Veda, more
instructive than the mythological language of Greece
and Rome. It may be so. The religious map of
the world may show as violent convulsions as the
geological map of the earth. All I say to the
enthusiastic believers in this contorted evolution of
religious thought is, let us wait till we know a little
more of Hottentots and Papuans ; let us wait till we
know at least their language, for otherwise we may
go hopelessly wrong.

The Historical School, in the meantime, is carrying
on its more modest work by publishing and translating
the ancient records of the great religions of the world,
undisturbed by the sneers of those who do notfind in the
Sacred Books of the East what they, in their ignorance,
expected — men, who, if they were geologists would no
doubt turn up their noses at a kitchen- midden, because
it did not contain their favourite lollypops. Where
there are no sacred texts to edit and to translate, the
true disciples of the Historical School — men such as,
for instance, Bishop Caldwell or Dr. Hahn in South
Africa., Dr. Brinton or Horatio Hale in North America

do not shrink from the drudgery of learning the
dialects spoken by savage tribes, gaining their con-
fidence, and gathering at last from their lips some
records of their popular traditions, their ceremonial
customs, some prayers, it may be, and some confession
of their ancient faith. But even with all these
materials at his disposal, the historical student does
not rush at once to the conclusion that either in the
legends of the Eskimos or in the hymns of the Vedic
Aiyas, we find the solution of all the riddles in the
science of religion. He only says that we are not

LAST ESSAYS.

likely to find any evidence much more trustworthy,
and that therefore we are justified in deriving certain
lessons from these materials. And what is the chief
lesson to be learnt from them ? It is this, that they
contain certain words and concepts and imaginations
which are as yet inexplicable, which seem simply
irrational, and require for their full explanation ante-
cedents which are lost to us ; but that they contain
also many words and concepts and imaginations
which are perfectly intelligible, which presuppose no
antecedents, and which, whatever their date may be,
may be called primary and rational. However strange
it may seem to us, there can be no doubt that the
perception of the Unknown or the Infinite was with
many races as ancient as the perception of the Known
or the Finite, that the two were, in fact, inseparable.
To men who lived on an island, the ocean was the
Unknown, the Infinite, and became in the end their
God. To men who lived in valleys, the rivers that
fed them and whose sources were unapproachable, the
mountains that protected them, and whose crests were
inaccessible, the sky that overshadowed them, and
whose power and beauty were unintelligible, these
were their unknown beings, their infinite beings, their
bright and kind beings, what they called their Devas,
their £ Brights/ the same word which, after passing
through many changes, still breathes in our Divinity.

This unconscious process of theogony is historically
attested, is intelligible, requires no antecedents, and
is, so far, a primary process. How old it is, who
would venture to ask or to tell ? All that the Historical
School ventures to assert is that it explains one side
of the origin of religion, namely, the gradual process

FORJOTTEN BIBLES.

of naming or conceiving the Infinite. While the
Theoretic School takes the predicate of God, when
applied to a fetish, as granted, the Historical School
sees in it the result of a long-continued evolution of
thought, beginning with the vague consciousness of
something invisible, unknown, and unlimited, which
gradually assumes a more and more definite shape
through similes, names, myths, and legends, till at last
it is divested again of all names, and lives within
us as the invisible, inconceivable, unnameable — the
infinite God.

I need hardly say th^rt though in the science of
religion as in the science of language, all my sympathies
are with the Historical School, I do not mean to deny
that the Theoretical School has likewise done some
good work. Let both schools work on, carefully and
honestly, and who knows but that their ways, which
seem so divergent at present, may meet in the
end.

Nowhere, perhaps, can we see the different spirit
in which these two schools, the Historical and the
Theoretical, set to work, more clearly than in what is
called by preference the Science of Man, Anthropology ;
or the Science of People, Ethnology ; or more generally
the science of old things, of the works of ancient men,
Archaeology. The Theoretic School begins, as usual,
with an ideal conception of what man must have been
in the beginning. According to some, he was the
image of his Maker, a perfect being, but soon destined
to fall to the level of ordinary humanity. According
to others, he began as a savage, whatever that may
mean, not much above the level of the beasts of the
field, and then had to work his way up through sue-.

LAST ESSAYS.

cessive stages which are supposed to follow each othei
by a kind of inherent necessity. First comes e
stage of the hunter and fisherman then that of the

breeder of cattle, the tiller of the soil, and lastly that
of the founder of cities.

As man is defined as an animal which uses tools,
we are told that according to the various materials of
which these tools were made, man must again by
necessity have passed through what are called the t
stages or ages of stone, bronze, and non, reusing
by means of these more and more perfect tools to
what we might call the age of steel and steam and
electricity, in which for the present civilization seems
to culminate. Whatever discoveries are made by
excavating the ruins of ancient cities by opening
tombs, by ransacking kitchen-middens, by explon
once more the flint-mines of prehistoric races, all must
submit to the fundamental theory, and each specimen
of bone or stone or bronze or iron must take the place
drawn out for it within the lines and limits of an

infallible system. .

The Historical School takes again the very opposite
line It begins with no theoretical expectations with
no logical necessities, but takes its spade and shovel
to see what there is left of old things - it describes
them, arranges them, classifies them, and thus hopes
in the end to understand and explain them. W hen a
Schliemann begins his work at Hissarl.k he >g
away, notes the depth at which each relic has been
found, places similar relics side by side, unconcern
whether iron comes before bronze, or bronze before
flint. Let me quote the words of a young and very
careful archaeologist, Mr. Arthur Evans, in describing

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

this kind of work, and the results which we obtain
from it h

‘ I'1 the topmost stratum of Hissarlik,’ lie writes ‘(which some
people like to call Troy), extending six feet down, we find remains
of the Roman and Macedonian Ilios, and the Aeolic colony ; and
the fragments of archaic Greek pottery discovered (hardly dis-
tinguishable from that of Sparta and Mykenai) take us back
already to the end of the first millennium before our era.

Below this, one superposed above the other, lie the remains of
no less than six successive prehistoric settlements, reaching down
to over fifty feet below the surface of the hill. The formation of
this vast superincumbent mass by artificial and natural causes
must have taken a long series of centuries ; and yet, when we
come to examine the lowest deposits, the remains of the first and
second cities, we are struck at once with the relatively high state
of civilization at which the inhabitants of this spot had already
arrived.

The food-remains show a people acquainted with agriculture
and cattle-rearing, as well as with hunting and fishing. The use
of bronze was known, though stone implements continued to be
used for certain purposes, and the bronze implements do not show
any of the refined forms — notably th e fibulae — characteristic of the
later Bronze Age.

Trade and commerce evidently were not wanting. Articles de
luxe of gold, enamel, and ivory were already being imported from
lands more directly under Babylonian and Egyptian influence, and
jade axelieads came by prehistoric trade-routes from the Kuen-
Lun, in China. The local potters were already acquainted with
the use of the wheel, and the city walls and temples of the second
city evince considerable progress in the art of building.’

Such is the result of the working of the Historical
School. It runs its shaft down from above ; the
Theoretical School runs its shaft up from below. It
may be that they are both doing good work, but such
is the strength of temperament and taste, even among
scientific men, that you will rarely see the same
person working in both mines ; nay, that not seldom
37°u hear the same disparaging remarks made by one

1 Academy, December 29, 1883.

II.

LAST ESSAYS.

party and the other, which you may he accustomed
to hear from the promoters of rival gold-mines in

India or in the south of Africa.

I might show the same conflict between Historical
and Theoretical research in almost every branch of
human knowledge. But, of course, we are all most
familiar with it through that important controversy,
which has occupied the present generation more than
anything else, and in which almost every one of us
has taken part and taken sides— I mean the con-
troversy about Evolution.

It seems almost as if I myself had lived m pre-
historic times, when I have to confess that, as a young
student, I witnessed the downfall of the theory of
Evolution which, for a time, had ruled supreme m the
Universities of Germany, particularly m the domain
of Natural History and Biology. In the school of
Oken, in the first philosophy of Schelling,. in the
eloquent treatises of Goethe, all was Evolution, De-
velopment, or as it was called in German, Das 11 erden,
the Becoming. The same spirit pervaded the philo-
sophy of Hegel. According to him, the whole world
was an evolution, a development by logical necessity,
to which all facts must bow. If they would not, taut
pis 'pour les f aits.

I do not remember the heyday of that school, but
I still remember its last despairing struggles. I still
remember at school and at the University rumours of
Carbon, half solid, half liquid, the famous TJrscMeim
now called Protoplasm, the Absolute Substance out of
which everything was evolved. I remember the more
or less amusing discussions about the less of the tail,
about races supposed to be still in possession of that

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

ancestral relic. I well remember my own particular
teacher, the great Greek scholar Gottfried Hermann 1,
giving great offence to his theological colleagues by
publishing an essay in 1840 in which he tried to
prove the descent of man from an ape. Allow me to
quote a few extracts from this rare and little noticed
essay. As the female is always less perfect than the
male, Hermann argued that the law of development
required that Eve must have existed before Adam, not
Adam before Eve. Quoting the words of Ennius —

‘ Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis,’
he goes on in his own peculiar Latin : —

Ex hac nobili gente quid dubitemus unam aliquando simiam
exortam putare, quae paullo minus belluina facie et indole esset ?
Ea, sive illam Evam sive Pandoram appellare placet, quum ex alio
simio gravida facta esset, peperit, ut saepenumero fieri constat,
filium matri quam patri similiorem, qui primus homo fuit.

Haec ergo est hominis generisque humani origo, non ilia quidem
valde honesta, sed paullo tamen honestior multoque probabilior,
quam si ex luto aqua permixto, cui anima fuerit inspirata, genus
duceremus.’

Surely Gottfried Hermann was a bolder man than
even Darwin, and to me who had attended his lectures
at Leipzig in 1841, Darwin’s Descent of Man, pub-
lished in 1871, was naturally far less novel and
startling by its theory than by the facts by which
that theory was once more supported. Kant’s philo-
sophy also had familiarized students of Anthropology
with the same ideas. For he, too, towards the end of
his Anthropologie, had spoken of a third period in
the development of nature, when an Oran-Utano- or

Evam ante Adamum creatam fuisse, sive de quodam communi
apud Mosen et Hesiodum errore circa creationem generis humani,’
in Ilgen s Zeitschrift fur die histor. Theologie , 1840, B. X. pp. 61-70.

LAST ESSAYS.

Chimpanzee may develop his organs of locomotion,
touch, and speech to the perfection of human organs,
raise his brain to an organ of thought, and slowly
elevate himself by social culture.

But this was not all. Oken (1779-1851) and his
disciples taught that the transition from inorganic to
organic nature was likewise a mere matter of deve-
lopment. The first step, according to him,, was the
formation of rising bubbles, which he called infusoria,
and the manifold repetition of which led, as he taught,
to the formation of plants and animals. The plant
was represented by him as an imperfect animal, the
animal as an imperfect man. To doubt that the
various races of men were descended from one pair
was considered at that time, and even to the. days ot
Prichard, not only a theological, but a biological
heresy. All variety was traced back to unity am
in the beginning there was nothing but Being ; which
Being, coming in conflict with Not-being, entered
upon& the process of Becoming, of development,, of
evolution. While this philosophy, was still being
preached in some German universities, a sharp re-
action took place in others, followed by the quick
ascendency of that Historical School of which I spoke
before. It was heralded in Germany by such men as
Niebuhr, Savigny, Bopp, Grimm, Otfried Muller,
Johannes Muller, the two Humboldts, and many
others whose names are less known in England,, bu
who did excellent work, each in his own special line.

I have tried to describe the general character 01
that school, and I have to confess that during the
whole of my life I have remained a humble disciple
of it. I am not blind to its weak points. It fixes

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

its eye far too much on the individual; it sees
differences everywhere, and is almost blind to simi-
larities. Hence the bewildering mass of species which
it admitted in Botany and Zoology. Hence its strong
piotest against the common origin of mankind ; hence
its still stronger protest against the transition from
inorganic to organic life, from the plant to the beast,
from the beast to the man. Hence, in the science of
language, its reluctance to admit even the possibility
of a common origin of human speech, and, in the
science of religion, its protest against deriving the reli-
gion of civilized races from a supposed anterior stage
of fetishism. Hence in Geology its rejection of
Plutonic and Volcanic theories, and its careful obser-
vation of the changes that have taken place, or are
still taking place, on the surface of the earth, within,
or almost within, the historical recollection of man.

In the careful anatomy of the eye by Johannes
Muller, and his philosophical analysis of the condi-
tions of the process of seeing, we have a specimen of
what I should call the best work of the Historical
School, even in physical science. In Mr. Herbert
Spencer’s account of the origin of the eye, we have
a specimen of what I call the best work of the
Theoretical School. Mr. Spencer tells us that what
we now call the eye consisted originally of a few
pigmentary grains under the outermost dermal layer,
and that rudimentary vision is constituted by the
wave of disturbance which a sudden change in the
state of these pigmentary grains propagates through
the body ; or, to put it into plain English, that the
eye began with some sore place in the skin, sensitive
to light, which smarted or tickled, and thus developed

LAST ESSAYS.

in time into what is now the most wonderful mechan-
ism, as described by Johannes Muller, Helmholtz, and
others.

Now I have little doubt that many of my readers
who have patiently followed my argument up to this
point, will say to themselves : ‘ What then about
Darwinism V Is that historical 01 theoretic 1 Is it
a mere phase in the evolution of thought, 01 is
it something permanent, and beyond the reach of
further development ? Such a question is not easy to
answer. Nothing is so misleading as names— I mean,
even such names as materialism, idealism, lealism,
and all the rest— which, after all, admit of some kind
of definition. But when we use a proper name— the
name of a philosopher— and then speak of all he has
been and thought and taught, as his ism , such as
Puseyism or Darwinism, the confusion becomes quite
chaotic. And with no one is this more the case than
with Darwin. The difference between Darwin and
many who call themselves Darwinians, is as great at
least as that between the horse and the mule. But
Darwin himself is by no means a man who can he
easily defined and classified. The very greatness and
power of Darwin seem to me to consist in his com-
bining the best qualities of what I have called the
Historical and Theoretical Schools. So long as he
observes and watches the slow transition of individual
peculiarities into more or less permanent varieties ;
so long as he exhibits the changes that take place
before our very eyes by means of artificial breeding,
as in the case of pigeons ; so long as he shows that
many of the numberless so-called species among
plants or animals share all that is essential in

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

common, and differ by accidental peculiarities only ;
so long as be traces living species back to extinct
species, the remains of which have been preserved
to us in the geological archives of our globe ; so long,
in fact, as he goes backward, step by step, and opens
to us page after page in the forgotten book of life, he
is one of the greatest and most successful representa-
tives of the Historical School. But when his love of
systematic uniformity leads him to postulate four
beginnings for the whole realm of organic life, though
not yet one, like his followers ; when he begins to
sketch a possible genealogical tree of all generations
of living things, though not yet with the heraldic
minuteness of his pupil, Professor Haeckel ; when he
argues that because natural selection can account for
certain very palpable changes, as between the wolf
and the spaniel, it may also account for less palpable
differences, as between the ape and the man, though
no real man of science would venture to argue in that
way ; when, in fact, he allows his hopes to get the
better of his fears, he becomes a follower and a very
powerful supporter of the Theoretic School.

It may be the very combination of these two
characters which explains the enormous influence
which Darwin’s theories have exercised on the present
generation ; but, if so, we shall see in that combina-
tion the germs of a new schism also, and the con-
ditions of further growth. Great as was Darwin’s
conscientiousness, we cannot deny that occasionally
his enthusiasm, or his logical convictions, led him
to judge of things of which he knew nothing, or
very little. He had convinced himself that man
was genealogically descended from an animal. That

LAST ESSAYS.

was as yet merely a theoretical conviction, as all
honest zoologists — I shall only mention Professor Vii-
ch o w — now fully admit. As language had been
pointed out as a Rubicon which no beast had ever
crossed, Darwin lent a willing ear to those who think
that they can derive language, that is, real logos , from
interjections and mimicry, by a process of spontaneous
evolution, and produced himself some most persuasive
arguments. We know how able, how persuasive a
pleader Darwin could be. When he wished to show
how man could have descended from an animal which
was born hairy and remained so during life1, he could
not well maintain that an animal without hair was
fitter to survive than an animal with hair. He there-
fore wished us to believe that our female semi-human
progenitors lost their hair by some accident, were, as
Hermann said, ‘ minus belluina facie et indole,, and
that in the process of sexual selection this partial or
complete baldness was considered an attraction, and
was thus perpetuated from mother to son. It was
difficult, no doubt, to give up Milton’s Eve for a semi-
human progenitor, suffering, it may be, from lepiosy
or leucoderma, yet Darwin, like Gottfried Hermann,
nearly persuaded us to do so. However, in defending
so hopeless, or, at all events, so unfortified a position
as the transition of the cries of animals into the
language of man, even so great a general as Darwin
undoubtedly was will occasionally encounter defeat,
and, I believe I may say without presumption, that,
to speak of no other barrier between man and beast,
the barrier of language remains as unshaken as ever,

1 Beseem of Man, ii. p. 377, where more details maybe found as to
the exact process of baldness or denudation in animals.

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

and renders every attempt at deriving man genealogi-
cally from any known or unknown ape, for the present
at least, impossible, or, at all events, unscientific.

After having described, however briefly and imper-
fectly, the salient features of the two great schools of
thought, the Historical and the Theoretical, I wish in
a few words to set forth the immense advantage which
the followers of the Historical School enjoy over the
mere theorist, not only in dealing with scientific pro-
blems, but likewise in handling the great problems of
our age, the burning questions of religion, philosophy,
morality, and politics.

History, as I said before, teaches us to understand
what is by teaching us to understand what has been.
All our present difficulties are difficulties of our own
making. All the tangles at which we are pulling
were made either by ourselves, or by those who came
before us. Who else should have made them ? The
Historical School, knowing how hopeless it is to pull
and tear at a tangled reel by main force, quietly takes
us behind the scenes, and shows us how first one thread
and then another and a third, and in the end hundreds
and thousands of threads went wrong, but how in the
beginning they lay before man’s eyes as even and as
regular as on a weaver’s loom.

Men who possess the historical instinct, and who
whenever they have to deal with any of the grave
problems of our age always ask how certain difficul-
ties and apparent contradictions first arose, are what
we should call practical men, and, as a rule, they are
far more successful in unravelling knotty questions
than the man who has a theory and a remedy ready
for everything, and who actually prides himself on

LAST ESSAYS.

his ignorance of the past. I think I can best make
my meaning’ clear by taking an instance. W hethei
Dean Stanley was what is now called a scientific
historian, a very laborious student of ancient chroni-
cles and charters, is not for me to say ; but if I weie
asked to define his mind, and his attitude towards all
the burning questions of the day, whether in politics,
or morality, or religion, I should say it was historical.
He was a true disciple of the Historical School.

I could show it by examining the position he took
in dealing with some of the highest questions of
theology. But I prefer, as an easier illustration, to
consider his treatment of one of the less exciting
questions, the question of vestments. Incredible as
it may seem, it is a fact nevertheless that not many
years ago a controversy about surplices, and albs, and
dalmatics, and stoles raged all over England. The
question by whom, at what time, and in what place,
the surplice should be worn, divided brothei fiom
brother, and father from child, as if that piece of
white linen possessed some mysterious power, or could
exercise some miraculous influence on the spirit of
the wearer. Any one who knew Stanley would know
how little he cared for vestments or garments, and
how difficult he would have found it to take sides,
either right or left, in a controversy about millinery
or ritual. But what did he do 1 ‘ Let us look at the

surplice historically ,’ he said. What is a surplice 1
—and first of all, what is the historical origin or the
etymology of the word. Surplice is the Latin super-
pelliciuvi. Super -pellicium means what is worn over
a fur or fur-jacket. Now this fur-jacket was not worn
by the primitive Christians in Rome, or Constanti-

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

nople, or Jerusalem, nor is there any mention of such
a vestment at the time of the Apostles. What, then,
is the history of that fur-jacket ? So far as we know,
it was a warm jacket worn by German peasants in the
colder climate of their country, and it was worn by
laity and clergy alike, as in fact all garments were
which we now consider exclusively ecclesiastical. As
this fur-jacket was apt to get dirty and unsightly,
a kind of smock-frock, that could be washed from
time to time, was worn over it — and this was called
the super-pellicium , the surplice.

Stanley thought it sufficient gently to remind the
wearer of the surplice that what he was so proud of
was only the lineal descendant of a German peasant’s
smock-frock ; and I believe he was right, and his
historical explanation certainly produced a better
effect on all who had a sense of history and of
humour than the most elaborate argument on the
mystical meaning of that robe of purity and inno-
cence.

He did the same with other vestments. Under the
wand of the historian, the alb turned out to be the old
Roman tunic or shirt, and the deacon officiating in his
alb was recognized as a servant working in his shirt-
sleeves. The dalmatic, again, was traced back to
the shirt with long sleeves worn by the Dalmatian
peasants, which became recognized as the dress of the
deacon about the time of Constantine. The cassoclc
and chasuble turned out to be great coats, worn
originally by laity and clergy alike — while the cope,
descended from the copa or capa , also called pluviale,
was translated by Stanley as a ‘waterproof.’ The
mitre was identified with the caps and turbans worn

LAST ESSAYS.

in the East by princes and nobles, and to this day by
the peasant women. The division into two points
was shown to be the mark of the crease which is the
consequence of its having been folded and canied
under the arm, like an opera-hat. The stole, lastly,
in the sense of a scarf, had a still humbler origin. It
was the substitute for the ovarium or handkerchief,
used for blowing the nose. No doubt, the possession
and use of a handkerchief was in early times restricted
to the ‘ higher circles.’ It is so to the present day in
Borneo, for instance, where only the king is allowed
to carry a handkerchief and to blow his nose. In
like manner then as in Borneo the handkerchief
became the insignia of royalty, it rose in the Roman
Church to become the distinctive garment of the
deacon.

I know that some of these explanations have been
contested, and rightly contested, but the general drift
of the argument remains unaffected by such reserva-
tions. I only quote them in order to explain what
I meant by Stanley’s historical attitude, an attitude
which all who belong to the Historical School, and
are guided by an historical spirit, like to assume
when brought face to face with the problems of
the day.

But what applies to small questions applies likewise
to great. Instead of discussing the question whether
the mystic mari'iage between Church and State can
ever be dissolved, the historian looks to the register
and to the settlements, in order to find out how that
marriage was brought about. Instead of discussing
the various theories of inspiration, the historian asks,
who was the first to coin the word? In what sense

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

did he use it? Did he claim inspiration for himself
or for others ? Did he claim it for one book only, or
for all truth? How much light can be thrown on
this subject by a simple historical treatment may be
seen in some excellent lectures, delivered lately before
a Secularist audience by Mr. Wilson1, the Head
Master of Clifton College, in the presence of the
Bishop of Exeter, and published under the title, The
Theory of Inspiration, or, Why men do not Believe
the Bible.

And this historical treatment seems to me the best,
not only for religious and philosophical, but also for
social problems. Who has not read the eloquent pages
of Mr. Henry George on Progress and Poverty ? Who
has not pondered on his social panacea, the nationali-
zation of the land ? It is of little use to grow angry
about these questions, to deal in blustering rhetoric,
or hysterical invective. So long as Mr. Henry George
treats the question of the tenure of land historically,
his writings are extremely interesting, and, I believe’
extremely useful, as reminding people that a great
portion of the land in England was not simply bought
for investment, but was granted by the sovereign on
certain conditions, such as military service, for instance,
those who held the land had to defend the land, and
it may well be asked why that duty, or why the taxes
lor army and navy, should now fall equally on the
whole country. It might be said that all this happened
a long time ago. But the reign of Charles the Second
does not yet belong so entirely to the realm of fable
that the nation might not trace its privileges back
to that time quite as much as certain families
1 Now the Archdeacon of Rochdale.

LAST ESSAYS.

whose wealth dates from the same period. Again, if
Mr. Henry George shows that in more recent times
common land was enclosed in defiance of historical
right, he is doing useful work, if only by reminding
lords of the manor that they should not court too
close an inspection of their title-deeds.. If there are
historical rights, there are historical rights on both
sides, on the side of those who have no land quite as
much as on the side of those who have, and surely
we are all of us most thankful that at the time of
Charles the Second, and earlier still, at the time of
Henry the Eighth, some large tracts of land were
nationalized— were confiscated, in fact— that is, trans-
ferred from the hands of former proprietors to the
fiscus, the national treasury. What would our national
Universities be without nationalized land ? They
would have to depend, as in Germany, on taxation,
and be administered, as in Germany, by a Government
Board. If, at the same time, some more land had
been nationalized in support of schools, hospitals,
almshouses, aye, even in support of army and na\ y,
instead of being granted to private individuals, should
we not all be most grateful? But though we may
regret the past, we cannot ignore it, and, to quote
Mr. Henry George’s own words, ‘ instead of weakening
and confusing the idea of property, we should surround
it with stronger sanctions.’

So far all historical minds would probably go with
Mr. Henry George. But when he joins the Theoretical
School, and tells us that every human being born into
this world has a divine right to a portion of Gods
earth, it is difficult to argue with him, for how does
he know it? Again, how does he know how much it

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

should be, and, what is more important still, in what
part of the world it should be ? An acre of land in
the city of London is very different from an acre of
land in Australia. Besides, what is the use of land
unless it has been cleared ? An old Indian lawgiver
says very truly, ‘ The deer belongs to him who sticks
his arrow into him, and the land to him who dio-s the
stumps out of it V If a man by his spade has
made a piece of waste land worth having, surely it
belongs to him as much as a sheet of paper belongs

to the man who has made it worth having; by his
pen. ° J

But, though I do not see how, with any regard for
the rights of property, which Mr. Henry ° George
regards as sacred, the nationalization of the land
could ever be carried out in an ancient country, such
as England, without fearful conflicts, or without a
religious revival, nor how it could effect, by itself
alone, the cure of the crying evils of the present state
ol our society, I admire Mr. Henry George for the
truths, the bitteT truths, which he tells us, and it
seems to me sheer intellectual cowardice to say that
his ideas are dangerous, and should not be listened
to. The facts which he places before us are dan-
gerous but there is far less danger in his theories
even if we all accepted them. We all hold theories
which might be called dangerous, if we ever thought
of carrying them out. We all hold the theory that
we ougnt to love our neighbour exactly as our-

1 In Australia, if two or more spears are found in the same

Lst Mcokv f ? th6 Pr°perty of him who threw the

1879 p, u y’ AcC0Unt the of Western Australia, Perth.

LAST ESSAYS.

selves ; but no one seems afraid that we should ever
do so.

One more question still waits for an answei.
Although the historical treatment may he the best,
and the only efficacious treatment of all problems
affecting religion, philosophy, morality, and politics,
should we not follow up our tangles in a straight
line, from knot to knot, from antecedent to antece-
dent ? And if so, what can be the use of the Sacred
Books of the East for the religious problems of the
West 1 What light can the Rig-veda or the Vedanta
philosophy of India throw on Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason ? How can the Koran help us in facing
modern problems of morality ? How can the Laws
of Manu, applicable to the village system of ancient
India, help us in answering the social problems ot

Mr. Henry George1? _ .

Perhaps the readiest answer I can give, is— Look
at the sciences of Language, of Mythology, of Religion.
What would they be without the East? They would
not even exist. We have learnt that history does not
necessarily proceed from the present to the past m
one straight line only. The stream of history runs in
many parallel branches, and each generation has not
only fathers and grandfathers, but also uncles and
great-uncles. In fact, the distinguishing character
of all scientific research in our century is comparison.
We have not only comparative philology, but also
comparative jurisprudence, comparative anatomy, com-
parative physiology. Many points in English Law
become intelligible only by a comparison with German
Law. Many difficulties in German Law are removed
by a reference to Roman or Greek Law. Many even

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

of the most minute rules of German, Roman, and
Greek Law become intelligible only by a reference to

e ancient customs and traditions preserved in the
Law-books of India.

This being so, it follows that a real historical study
ot the ancient language, the ancient philosophy, and
the ancient religion of the East, and, more particularly
ot India, may have its very important bearing on the
questions nearest to our own hearts. The mere lesson
that we are not the only people who have a Bible, that
our theologians are not the only theologians who
claim for their Bible a divine inspiration, that our
Church is not the only Church which has declared
that those who do not hold certain doctrines cannot

be saved, may have its advantages, if rightly under-
stood.

These indirect lessons are often far more impressive
than any more direct teaching. We see them our-
selves, or we must draw them for ourselves, and that
is always a better discipline than when we have
simply to accept what we are told. It may seem
a roundabout way, and yet it often leads to the end
ar more rapidly than a more direct route, nay, in
some cases it is the only practicable route.

Let us take comparative anatomy as an illustration.

V\ e all of us want to know what our bodily or-
ganism is like, how we ^ee or hear, how we breathe
ow we digest— m fact, how we live. But for a Iona
time people shrank from dissecting a human body!
They then took a mollusk, or a fish, or a bird, or
a og or even so man-like an animal as an ape,
am they soon grew accustomed to the idea that
the muscles, bones, nerves, or even brains in the

II. n

LAST ESSAYS.

anatomical preparations correspond to their own
muscles, their own bones, their own nerves, even their
own brains. They gladly listened to an explanation
how all these organs work together in the bodies of
animals, and produce results very similar to those
which they know from their own experience. Their
mind thus grew stronger, larger, and more compre-
hensive— it may be, more tolerant.

If after a time you go a step further, and bring
a dead human body before them to dissect it before
their eyes, there will be at first a little shudder
creeping over them, something like the feeling which
a young curate might have when recognizing for the
first time the smock-frock of a German peasant as
the prototype of his own beloved surplice. However,
even that shudder might possibly be overcome, and
in the end some useful lesson might be learned from

seeing ourselves as we are in the flesh.

But now suppose some bold vivisectionist were
to venture beyond, and to dissect before our eyes
a living man, in order to show us how we really
breathe, and digest, and live, or in order to make
us see what is right and wrong in his system. We
should all say it was horrible, intolerable. We should
turn away, and stop the proceedings.

If we apply all this, mutatis mutandis , to a study
of religion, we shall readily understand the great
advantages not only of an historical study of our
own religion, but also of a comparative study of
Eastern religions as they can be studied now in the
translations of the Sacred Books of the East. I hose
who are willing to learn may learn from a compara-
tive study of Eastern religions all that can be known

FORGOTTEN BIBLES.

about religions— how they grow, how they decay,
and how they spring up again. They may see all
that is good and all that is bad in various forms and
phases of ancient faith, and they must be blinder
than blind if they cannot see how the comparative
anatomy of those foreign religions throws light on
the questions of the day, on the problems nearest
to our own hearts, on our own philosophy, and on
our own faith.

D 2

ANCIENT PRAYERS h

THERE are few religions, whether ancient or
modern, whether elaborated by uncivilized
or civilized people, in which we do not find tiaces
of prayer. Hence, if we consult any work on the
science or on the history of religion, we generally find
prayer represented as something extremely natuial,
as something almost inevitable in any leligion. It
may seem very natural to us, but was it really so

very natural in the beginning ?

What was the meaning of prayer? It is always
best to begin with the etymology of a word, R we
want to know its original or its most ancient meaning.
It is generally supposed that prayer was at first what
its name implies in English, a petition. Our own
word prayer is derived from a mediaeval Latin word
precar ict, literally a bidding-prayer. In Latin we
have precari, to ask, to beg, but also to pi ay in a
more general sense ; for instance, in such expressions
as 'precari ad deos, to pray to the gods, which does
not necessarily mean to ask for any special favours.
We have also the substantive prex, mostly used in the
plural preces, meaning a request, but more particularly
a request addressed to the gods, a prayer or suppli-
cation. Procus, also, a wooer or suitor, and procax,
a shameless beggar, both come from the same source.

1 Not published before.

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

3 7

Oiiginally the root from which these Latin words are
derived had the more general meaning of asking or
inquiiing. It occurs in this sense in Sanskrit prasna,
question, and. in pri/c/cMmi, to ask. We have the
same element in Gothic fraihnan, and in the modern
German fragen, to ask. Even the German forschen,
to inquire, which gives us Forschung, Forscher, and
bprachf or scher, a student of language, was derived
from the same root. If, then, by prayer was meant
originally a petition, we ask once more, Was it really
so very natural that people in all parts of the world,
in ancient as well as in modern times, should have
asked beings whom they had never seen to give them
certain things, something to eat or something to
drink, though, as a matter of fact, they knew that
they had never directly received anything of the kind
from these invisible hands?

It used to be said that prayers were originally
addressed to the spirits of the departed, and not to
gods. This opinion has been revived of late, but
without much success. Historical evidence there is
of course none, and no one would say that it was
moie natural to ask these departed spirits for valuable
gifts than the gods. As a matter of fact, they had
never been known to bestow a single tangible gift on
their worshippers. Of course, there may have been
cases where, as soon as a man had prayed to the
spirit of his father to send rain on the parched fields,
ram came down from the sky ; but the fact that even
we call such fulfilments precarious , that is prayer-like
or uncertain (for precarious is likewise derived from
precari), shows that we cannot call a belief in the
efficacy of prayer very natural.

LAST ESSAYS.

Prayer becomes in reality more natuial and in-
telligible when it is addressed, not to ancestral spirits,
who are often conceived as troublesome beggars rather
than as givers, but to certain phenomena of nature in
which men had recognized the presence of agents who
became everywhere the oldest gods.

As the rain came from the sky, and as the sky was
called Dyaus in Sanskrit, Zeus in Greek, we may
indeed call it natural that the Athenians when they
saw their harvest— that is, their very life, ^destroyed
by drought, should have said : vaov vaov, £ Zev,
KOtTOt T/js apovpas tS)V A.9r}VCUU)V Kell TU)V 7T€8iCOV.

‘ Rain, rain, O dear Sky, down on the land of the
Athenians and on the fields h

So natural is this Athenian prayer that we find
it repeated almost in the same words among the
Hottentots. Georg Schmidt, a Moravian missionary
sent to the Cape in 1737, tells us that the natives at
the return of the Pleiades assemble and sing together,
according to the old custom of their ancestors, the
following prayer: ‘O Tiqua, our Father above our
heads, give rain to us, that the fruits may ripen and
that we may have plenty of food, send us a good year-.

But though prayers like these may, in a certain
sense, be called natural and intelligible, they pre-
suppose nevertheless a long series of antecedents.
People must have framed a name for sky, such as
Dyaus, which originally meant Bright or Light, or
rather the agent and giver of light ; they must have
extended the sphere of action assigned to this agent
so that he would be conceived not only as the giver

1 Science of Language, New Edition, 1892, ii. p. 546.

3 Introduction to the Science of Religion p. 282.

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

of light and warmth, but likewise as the giver of rain,
and at the same time as the lord of the thunderstorm,
as the wielder of the thunderbolt, as the most powerful
among the actors behind the other phenomena of the
sky. Only after all this had been done, could they
think of calling that Zeus or that Dyaus, dear (<fn'A os) ;
and you perceive how that one word dear at once
changes the sky into a being endowed with human
feelings, a being dear to human beings and not
altogether unlike them.

INow with regard to the belief of the ancient people
in the efficacy of prayer and the fulfilment of then-
petitions, we must remember that the chances between
rain and no rain are about equal. If, then, after
days of drought a prayer for rain had been uttered,
and there came rain, what was more natural than
that those who had prayed to the sky for rain should
offer thanksgiving to the sky or to Zeus for having
heard their prayer, and that a belief should gradually
grow up that the great gods of nature would hear
prayers and fulfil them. Nor was that belief likely
to be shaken if there was no rain in answer to prayer ;
for there was always an excuse. Either it might be
said that he who offered the prayer had committed
a mistake — this was a very frequent explanation— or
that he was no favourite with the gods ; or, lastly,
that the gods were angry with the people, and there-
fore would not fulfil their prayers.

It might seem that it would have been just the
same with prayers addressed to the spirits of the
departed. But yet it was not quite so. The ancient
gods of nature were representatives of natural powers,
and as Zeus, the god of the sky, was naturally implored

LAST ESSAYS.

for rain, the divine representatives of the sun would
be implored either to give heat and warmth or to
withhold them. Lunar deities might be asked for
the return of many moons, that is to say, for a long
life, the gods of the earth for fertility, the gods of the
sea for fair wind and weather, the gods of rivers for
protection against invaders, or against the invasion
of their own floods. But there was nothing special
that the spirits of the departed would seem able to
grant. Hence the prayers addressed to them are
mostly of a more general character. In moments of
danger children would, by sheer memory, be reminded
of their fathers or grandfathers who had been their
guides and protectors in former years when threatened
by similar dangers. A prayer addressed to the
departed spirits for general help and protection
might, therefore, in a certain sense be called natural ;
that is to say, even we ourselves, if placed under
similar circumstances, might feel inclined to remember
our parents and call for their aid, as if they were
still present with us, though we could form no idea
in what way they could possibly render us any
assistance.

Let us see, then, what we can learn about prayers
from the accounts furnished to us of the religions of
uncivilized, or so-called primitive, people. We ought
to distinguish between three classes of religion, called
ethnic , national, and individual. The religions of
unorganized tribes, in the lowest state of civilization,
have been called ethnic, to distinguish them from the
religions of those who had grown into nations, and

O ° .

whose religions are called national, while a third
class comprises all religions which claim individual

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

foundeis, and have therefore been called individual
religions.

Nowhere can we find the earliest phase of prayer
more clearly represented than among the Melanesian
tribes, who have been so well described to us by the
Rev. Dr. Codnngton. It is generally supposed that
the religion of the inhabitants of the Melanesian
islands consists entirely in a belief in spirits. No-
thing can be more erroneous. We must distinguish,
however, between ghosts and spirits. Ghosts, as’
Dr. Codrington tells us, are meant for the souls of
the departed, while spirits are beings that have never
been men. The two are sometimes mixed up together,
but they are quite distinct in their origin. It seems
that the spirits were always associated with physical
phenomena, and thus were more akin to the gods of
the Greeks and Romans. We hear of spirits of the
sea, of the land, of mountains and valleys ; and though
we are told that they are simply ghosts that haunt
the sea and the mountains, there must have been
some reason why one is connected with the sea,
another with the mountains ; nay, their very abode
would have imparted to each a physical character,
e\en if in their origin they had been mere ghosts of
the departed. These spirits and ghosts have different
names in different, islands, but to speak of any of
them as missionaries are very apt to do, as either
gods or devils, is clearly misleading.

The answers given by natives when suddenly asked
what they mean by their spirits and ghosts are
naturally very varying and very unsatisfactory.

V\ hat should we ourselves say if we were suddenly
asked as to what we thought a soul, or a spirit, or

LAST ESSAYS.

a ghost to be 1 Still, one thing is quite clear, that
these spiritual and ghostly beings of the Melanesians
are invisible, and that nevertheless they receive
worship and prayers from these simple-minded people.
Some of their prayers are certainly interesting. Some
of them seem to be delivered on the spur of the
moment, others have become traditional and are often
supposed to possess a kind ot miraculous power,
probably on account of having proved efficacious on
former occasions.

There is a prayer used at sea and addressed to
Daula, a ghost, or, in their language, a tindalo : —

< Do thou draw the canoe, that it may reach the land : speed my
canoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reach the shore whither 1
am bound. Do thou, Daula, lighten the canoe, that it may quickly
gain the land and rise upon the shore.’

Sometimes the ancestral ghosts are invoked to-
gether, as —

‘ Save us on the deep, save us from the tempest, bring us to the
shore.’

To people who live on fish, catching fish is often
a matter of life and death. Hence we can well under-
stand a prayer like the following : —

‘ if thou art powerful, 0 Daula, put a fish or two into this net
and let them die there.’

We can also understand that after a plentiful catch
thanks should have been offered to the same beings,
if only in a few words, such as —

< Powerful is the tindalo of the net.’

This is all very abrupt, very short, and to the
point. They are invocations rather than real prayers.

Some of these utterances become after a time charms
handed down from father to son, nay, even taught to

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

others for a consideration. They are then called

lehungai x.

Again, if a man is sick, the people call out the
name of the sick man, and if a sound is heard in
response, they say, £ Come back to life,’ and then run
to the house shouting, ‘ He will live.’

All this to a strict reasoner may sound very un-
i easonable ; still, that it is in accordance with human
natuie, in an uncivilized and even in a civilized age,
can easily be proved by a comparison of the prayers

of other people, which we shall have to consider
hereafter.

If it is once believed that the ghosts can confer
benefits and protect from evil, it is but a small step
to call on them to confound our enemies. Thus we
read that in Mota when the oven is opened for
piepaiing a meal, a leaf ol cooked mallow is thrown
in for some dead person. His ghost is addressed with
the following words : —

‘ 0 Tataro ! * (another name for the ghosts) < this is a lucky bit
or your eating ; they who have charmed your food, or have
clubbed you— take hold of their hands, drag them away to hell,
let them be dead ! ’

And if, after this, the man against whom this im-
precation is directed meets with an accident, they
cry out: —

‘ Oh, oh ! my curse in eating has worked upon him— he is dead.’

In Fiji prayer generally ends with these malignant
requests : —

‘ Let us live, and let those that speak evil of us perish ! Let the
enemy be clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps !
Let their teeth be broken. May they fall headlong in a pit. Let
us live, and let our enemies perish ! ’

Codrington, The Melanesians , chap. ix.

LAST ESSAYS.

We must not be too bard on these pious savages, for
with them there was only the choice between eating
or being eaten, and they naturally preferred the
former.

Before eating and drinking, the ghosts of the de-
parted were often remembered at the family meal.
Some drops of Kava were poured out, with the
words : —

‘ Tataro, grandfather, this is your lucky drop of Kava ; let boars
come to me ; let rawe come in to me : the money I have spent, let
it come back to me : the food that is gone, let it come back hither
to the house of you and me ! ’

On starting on a voyage they say : —

1 Tataro, uncle ! father ! Plenty of boars for you, plenty of
rawe, plenty of money ; Kava for your drinking, lucky food for
your eating in the canoe. I pray you with this, look down upon
me, let me go on a safe sea ! ’

Prayers addressed to spirits who are not mere
ghosts or departed souls, but connected with some
of the phenomena of nature, seem to enter more into
detail. Thus the Melanesians invoke two spirits (vui),
Qat and Marawa : —

• Qat ! you and Marawa/ they say, ‘cover over with your hand
the blow-hole from me, that 1 may come into a quiet landing-
place ; let it calm well down away from me. Let the canoe of you
and me go up in a quiet landing-place ! Look down upon me,
prepare the sea of you and me, that I may go on a safe sea. Beat
down the head of the waves from me ; let the tide-rip sink down
away from me ; beat it down level, that it may go down and roll
away, and I may come into a quiet landing-place. Let the canoe
of you and me turn into a whale, a flying fish, an eagle ; let it
leap on end over the waves, let it go, let it pass out to my land.'

If all went well, need we wonder that the people
believed that Qat and Marawa had actually come
and held the mast and rigging fast, and had led the
canoe home laden with fish ! If, on the contrary,

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

the canoe and its crew were drowned, nothing could
be. said against the spirits, Qat and Marawa, and the
priests at home would probably say that the crew
had failed to invoke their aid as they ought to have
done, so that, as you see, the odds were always in
favour of Qat and Marawa.

Nowhere is a belief and a worship of ancestral
spirits so widely spread as in Africa. Here, therefore,
we find many invocations and petitions addressed to
the spirits. Some of these petitions are very short.
Sometimes nothing is said beyond the name of the
spirits.. They simply cry aloud, £ People of our house.’
Sometimes they add, like angry children, what they
want, People of our house ! Cattle ! ’ Sometimes
there is a kind of barter. ‘ People of our house,’
they say, ‘ I sacrifice these cattle to you, I pray for
more cattle, more com, and many children ; then
this your home will prosper, and many will praise
and thank you.’

A belief in ancestral spirits or fathers leads on,
very naturally, to a belief in a Father of all fathers,
the Great Grandfather as he is sometimes called. He
was known even to so low a race as that of the
Hottentots, if we may trust Dr. Hahn, who las
■written down the following prayer from the mouth
of a Hottentot friend of his : —

‘Thou, O Tsui-goa,

Thou Father of Fathers,

Thou art our Father !

Let stream the thunder-cloud !

Let our flocks live !

Let us also live !

I am very weak indeed
From thirst, from hunger.

Oh, that I may eat the fruits of the field !

LAST ESSAYS.

Art thou not our Father,

The Father of Fathers,

Thou, Tsui-goa?

Oh, that we may praise thee,

That we may give thee in return,

Thou Father of Fathers,

Thou, O Lord,

Thou, O Tsui-goa ! ’

This is not a bad specimen of a savage prayer; nay,
it is hardly inferior to some of the hymns of the Veda
and Avesta.

The negro on the Gold Coast, who used formerly to
be classed as a mere fetish-worshipper, addresses his
petitions neither to the spirits of the departed nor to
his so-called fetish, but he prays, * God, give me to-day
rice and yams ; give me slaves, riches ; and health !
Let me be brisk and swift ! 1 When taking medicine,
they say, ‘ Father - Heaven (Zeu -narep ) ! bless this
medicine which I take.’ The negro on Lake Nyassa
offers his deity a pot of beer and a basketful of meal,
and cries out, ‘ Hear thou, 0 God, and send rain,
while the people around clap their hands and intone
a prayer, saying, ‘ Hear thou, O God.’

The idea that the religion of these negro races
consists of fetish-worship is wellnigh given up. It
has been proved that nearly all of them address their
prayers to a Supreme Deity, while these fetishes are
no more than what a talisman or a horse-shoe would
be with us. Oldendorp, a missionary of large experi-
ence in Africa, says : —

<■ Among all the black natives with whom I became acquainted,
even the most ignorant, there is none who does not believe in
God, give Him a name, and regard Him as a maker of the world.
Besides this supreme beneficent deity, whom they all worship,
they believed in many inferior gods, whose powers appear in
serpents, tigers, rivers, trees, and stones. Some of them are

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

malevolent, but the negroes do not worship the bad or cruel gods :
they only try to appease them by presents or sacrifices. They
pray to the good gods alone. The daily prayer of a Watja negress
was, *‘God, I know Thee not, but Thou knowest me. I need Thy
help ! ” *

This is a prayer to which an Agnostic need not
object.

A Roman Catholic Missionary, Father Loyer, who
studied the habits of the natives of the Gold Coast,
says the same.

‘It is a great mistake,’ he wrote, ‘to suppose that the negroes
regard the so-called fetishes as gods. They are only charms or
amulets. The negroes have a belief in one powerful being, to
whom they offer prayers. Every morning they wash in the river,
put sand on their head to express their humility, and, lifting up
their hands, ask their God to give them yams and rice and other
blessings V

So much for the prayers of races on the very lowest
stage of civilization. Dr. Tylor, whose charming
works on Primitive Culture we never consult in
vain, tells us, ‘that there are many races who dis-
tinctly admit the existence of spirits, but are not
certainly known to pray to them, even in thought V
I doubt whether there are many ; I confess I know
of none ; and we must remember that, in a case like
this, negative evidence is never quite satisfactory.
Still, on the other hand, Mr. Freeman Clarke seems
to me to go too far when, in his excellent work on
The Ten Great Religions (part ii, p. 222), he calls the
custom of prayer and worship, addressed to invisible
powers, a universal fact in the history of man. It
may be so, but we are not yet able to prove it, and
in these matters caution is certainly the better part

1 Clarke, Ten Religions, ii. p. 1 1 c.

3 Primitive Culture, ii. p. 330.

LAST ESSAYS.

of valour. Nothing can well be lower in the scale of
humanity than the Papuans. Yet the Papuans of
Tanna offer the first-fruits to the ghosts of their
ancestors, and their chief, who acts as a kind of high
priest, calls out : —

‘ Compassionate Father ! there is some food for you ; eat it, and
be kind to us on account of it ! ’

And this the whole assembly begins to shout together1.

The Indians of North America stand decidedly
higher than the Papuans ; in fact, some of their
religious ideas are so exalted that many students
have suspected Christian influences 2. The Osages,
for instance, worship Wohkonda, the Master of Life,
and they pray to him : —

‘0 Wohkonda, pity me, I am very poor ; give me what I need ;
give me success against my enemies, that I may avenge the death
of my friends. May I be able to take scalps, to take horses ! ’

John Tanner tells us that when the Algonquin
Indians set out in their frail boats to cross Lake
Superior, the canoes were suddenly stopped when
about two hundred yards from land, and the chief
began to pray in a loud voice to the Great Spirit,
saying

‘You have made this lake, and you have made us, your children ;
you can now cause that the water shall remain smooth, while we
pass over in safety.’

He then threw some tobacco into the lake, and the
other canoes followed his example. The Delawares
invoke the Great Spirit above to protect their wives
and children that they may not have to mourn for

1 Compare Turner, Polynesia , p. S8 ; Tylor, Primitive Culture , ii.
P- 33r-

2 M. M., Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 195.

ANCIENT PKAYEBS.

them. The Peruvians soar much higher in their
prayers. M. Reville, in his learned work on the
-Religion of Mexico, tells us that prayers are very
rare among the Peruvians. Mr. Brinton, on the

contrary, in his Myths of the New World, p. 298,
speaks of perfectly authentic prayers which had been
collected and translated in the first generation after
the conquest. One addressed to Viracocha Pachacamac
is very striking, but here we can certainly perceive
Christian influences, if only on the part of the
translator : —

‘0 Pachacamac,’ they say, ‘thou who hast existed from the
beginning and shalt exist unto the end, powerful and pitiful ; who
createdst man by saying, Let man be ; who defendest us from evil,
and preservest our life and health ; art thou in the sky or in the
earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear the voice of him
who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give us life
everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice.’

The specimens of ancient Mexican prayers collected
by Sahagun are very numerous, and some of them are
certainly very thoughtful and even beautiful

‘ Is ifc possible,’ says one of them, ‘ that this affliction is sent to
us, not for our correction and improvement, but for our destruc-
tion?’ Or, ‘0 merciful Lord, let this chastisement with which
thou hast visited us, the people, be as those which a father or
mother inflicts on their children, not out of anger, but to the end
that they may be free from follies and vices.’

With regard to these Mexican prayers we must
neither be too credulous nor too sceptical. Our first
impulse is, no doubt, to suspect some influence of
Christian missionaries, but when scholars who have
made a special study of the South American literatures
assure us that they are authentic, and go back to
generations before the Spanish conquest, we must try
to learn, as well as we can, the old lesson that God

ir. E

LAST ESSAYS.

has not left Himself without witness among any
people. To me, I confess, this ancient Mexican
literature, and the ancient Mexican civilization, as
attested by architecture and other evidence of social
advancement, have been a constant puzzle. In one
sense it may be said that not even the negroes of
Dahomey are more savage in their wholesale butcheries
of human victims than the Mexicans seem to have
been, according to their own confession. Not dozens,
but hundreds, nay, thousands of human beings were
slaughtered at one sacrifice, and no one seems to have
seen any harm in it. The Spaniards assure us that
they saw in one building 136,000 skulls, and that the
annual number of victims was never less than 20,000.
It was looked upon almost as an honour to be selected
as a victim to the gods, and yet these people had the
most exalted ideas of the Godhead, and at the time of
the conquest they were in possession of really beautiful
and refined poetry. There are collections of ancient
Mexican poems, published in the original, with what
professes to be a literal translation l. No doubt,
whoever collected and wrote down these poems was
a Spaniard and a Christian. Such words as Dios for
God, Angel for angel, nay, even the names of Christ
and the Virgin Mary occurring in the original poems,
are clear evidence to that effect. But they likewise
prove that no real fraud was intended. Some poems
are professedly Christian, but the language, the thought,
and the style of the majority of them seem to me
neither Christian nor Spanish. I shall give a few
specimens, particularly as some of them may really
be called prayers: —

1 Ancient Poetry, by Brinton, 1887.

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

‘ Where shall ray soul dwell ? Where is my home ?

Where shall be my house ? I am miserable on earth.

We wind and we unwind the jewels, the blue flowers are woven
over the yellow ones, that we may give them to the children

Let my soul be draped in various flowers, let it be intoxicated
bj them ; for soon must I weep, and go before the face of our mother.

This only do I ask : thou Giver of Life, be not angry, be not
severe on earth, let us live with thee on earth, and take us to thy
heavens.

But what can I speak truly here of the Giver of Life ? We only
dream, we are plunged in sleep. I speak here on earth, but never
can we here on earth speak in worthy terms.

Although it may be jewels and precious ointments of speech,
yet of the Giver of Life one can never speak here in worthy terms.’

Or again : —

• How much, alas ! shall I weep on earth? Truly I have lived
in vain illusion. I say that whatever is here on earth must end
with our lives. May I be allowed to sing to thee, the Cause of all,
theie in the heaven, a dweller in thy mansion ; then may my
soul lift its voice and be seen with thee and near thee, thee by
whom we live, ohuaya ! ohuaya? ’

There is a constant note of sadness in all these
Mexican songs; the poet expresses a true delight in
the beauty of nature, in the sweetness of life, but he
feels that all must end ; he grieves over those whom
he will never see again among the flowers and jewels
of this earth, and his only comfort is the life that is
to come. That it was wrong to dispatch thousands
of human beings rather prematurely to this life to
come nay, to feed on their flesh — seems never to have
struck the mind of these sentimental philosophers.
In one passage of these prayers the priest says : —

Thou shalt clothe the naked and feed the hungry, for remember
their flesh is thine, and they are men like thee.’

But the practical application of this commandment
is seen in their sacrifices in all their ghastly hideous-
ness.

LAST ESSAYS.

All the prayers which we have hitherto examined
belong to the lowest stage of civilization, and imply
the very simplest relation between man and some
unseen powers. If addressed to the ghosts of the
departed, these invocations are not much more than
a continuation of what might have passed between
children and their parents while they were still
alive. If addressed to the spirits of heaven or other
prominent powers of nature, they are often but
petulant, childish requests, or mean bargains between
a slave and his master. Yet, with all this, they
prove the existence of a belief in something beyond
this finite world, something not finite, but infinite,
something invisible, yet real. This belief is one of
the many proofs that man is more than a mere
animal, though I am well aware that believers in the
so-called mental evolution of animals have persuaded
themselves that animals also worship and pray. And
what is their evidence”? Certain monkeys in Africa,
they say, turn every morning towards the rising sun,
exactly like the Parsees or sun-worshippers. If they do
not utter any sound, it is supposed that their feelings
of reverence are too much for them ; if they do not
beg, it is, perhaps, because they know that the lilies
of the field are clothed and fed without having to
pray. It is no use arguing against such twaddle.
It is perfectly true, however, that in many cases
the unuttered prayer stands higher than the uttered
prayer, and that there comes a time in the history of
religion when prayer in the sense of begging is con-
demned. A silent inclination before the rising sun
may lift the mind to a more sublime height than the
most elaborate litany, but whether it is so in the case

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

of these monkeys who turn their faces to the rising
sun, we must leave to Dr. Gamier to decide, who is
now studying the language of the gorillas in Africa.
I have often quoted the words of a poor Samoyede
woman, who, when she was asked what her prayer
was, replied : ‘ Every morning I step out of my tent
and bow before the sun and say: “When thou risest,
I too rise from my bed.” And every evening I say :
“ When thou sinkest down, I too sink down to rest.” ’
Even this utterance, poor as it may seem to us as
a piayer, was to her a kind of religious worship.
Every morning and evening it lifted her thoughts
from earth to heaven, it expressed a silent conviction
that her life was bound up with a higher life. Her
not asking for anything, for any special favour, even
foi hei daily bread, showed likewise somewhat of
that wonderful trust that the fowls of the air are fed,
though they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns.

We have hitherto examined the incipient prayers
of uncivilized or semi-civilized races. For even the
Mexicans and Peruvians, whose prayers and literature
as well as their architectural remains point to what
may be called civilization before their conquest by
the Spaniards, stand nevertheless lower than many
savages when we consider the wholesale slaughter
of human victims at their sacrifices, and the un-
deniable traces of cannibalism to the latest period
of their national existence.

We have now to consider some of the religions
which are called ncitioTicil. They have grown up at
a time when scattered tribes had grown into compact
nationalities, while their founders are unknown and

LAST ESSAYS.

never appealed to as authorities. The most important
among them are the religions of China, of India, of
Persia, of Greece and Home.

When we speak of the ancient religion of China,
sometimes called Confucianism, we often forget that
Confucius himself protests most strongly against being
supposed to have been the author or founder of that
religion. Again and again he says that he has only
collected and restored the old faith. In the sacred
books of China which he collected there are hardly
any prayers. It is not till quite modern times that
we meet with prayer as an essential part of public
worship. It does not follow from this that the
Chinese people at large were ignorant of private
prayers, whether addressed to their ancestors, or to
the gods of nature, or to the Supreme Spirit, in
whom they believed ; but it is curious to observe even
in Confucius a certain reserve, a certain awe that
would prevent any familiar intercourse between man
and God. Thus he says : ‘ Reverence the spirits, but
keep aloof from them.’

There is a curious prayer recorded as having been
offered by an Emperor of China in the year 1538.
It was on a memorable occasion when the name of
the Supreme Deity was to be altered. The old name
for God in China was Tien, which means heaven, just
as Dyaus and Zeus, according to their etymology,
meant heaven. Even we can still say, ‘ I have offended
against heaven’; and what do we mean by saying, for
instance, ‘He lives, heaven knows how’? In the
ancient books Shang-Tien also is used for Tien. This
means high heaven, and makes it quite clear that
it was intended as a name of the Supreme Deity.

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

Another name for spirit was Ti, and this name by
itself, or with Slicing prefixed, became the recognized
name for God as the Supreme Spirit, used often in
the same sentences as interchangeable with Tien'.
When the appointed day came, the Emperor and his
court assembled around the circular altar. First
they prostrated themselves eleven times, and then
addressed the Great Being as he who dissipated chaos
and formed the heavens, earth, and man.

The proclamation was as follows : —

‘ I, the Emperor, have respectfully prepared this paper to inform
the spirit of the sun, the spirit of the moon, the spirits of the five
planets, of the stars, of the clouds, of the four seas, of the great
rivers, of the present year, &e., that on the first of next month we
shall reverently lead our officers and people to honour the great
name of Shang ti. We inform you beforehand, 0 ye celestial and
terrestrial spirits, and will trouble you on our behalf to exei’t
your spiritual power, and display your vigorous efficacy, commu-
nicating our poor desire to Shang ti, praying him to accept our
worship, and be pleased with the new title which we shall
reverently present to him.’

We see here how the Chinese recognized, between
man and the Supreme Ti, a number of intermediate
spirits or ti’s, such as the sun, moon, stars, seas, and
rivers, who were to communicate the prayer of the
Emperor to the Supreme Being. That prayer ran
as follows : —

‘Thou, O Ti, didst open the way for the form of matter to
operate ; thou, O Spirit, didst produce the beautiful light of the
sun and moon, that all thy creatures might be happy.

Thou hast vouchsafed to hear us, O Ti, for thou regardest us as
thy children. I, thy child, dull and ignorant, can poorly express
my feelings. Honourable is thy great name.’

Then food was placed on the altar, first boiled meat,

1 Legge, Sacred Books of the East, iii. p. 24.

LAST ESSAYS.

and cups of wine, and Ti was requested to receive
them with these words : —

‘The Sovereign Spirit deigns to accept our offering. Give thy
people happiness. Send down thy favour. All creatures are
upheld by thy love. Thou alone art the parent of all things.

The service of song is now completed, but our poor sincerity
cannot be expressed aright. The sense of thy goodness is in our
heart. We have adored thee, and would unite with all spirits in
honouring thy name. We place it on this sacred sheet of paper,
and now put it in the fire, with precious silks, that the smoke may
go up with our prayers to the distant blue heavens. Let all the
ends of the earth rejoice in thy name.’

I doubt whether even in a Christian country any
archbishop could produce a better official prayer. It
is marked by deep reverence, but it also implies
a belief that the close relationship between father
and son exists between the Supreme Spirit and man.
It is a hymn of praise rather than a prayer, and even
when it asks for anything, it is only the divine
favour.

When we now turn from China to the ancient
religion of India, we find there a superabundance of
prayers. The whole of the Rig-veda consists of
hymns and prayers, more than a thousand ; the Sama-
veda contains the same piTiyers again, as set to
music, and the Yajur-veda contains verses and
formulas employed at a number of ceremonial acts.
Were these hymns spontaneous compositions, or
were they composed simply and solely for the sake
of the sacrifices, both public and private ? There has
lately been a long and somewhat heated controversy,
carried on both by Aryan and Semitic scholars, as
to the general question whether sacrifice comes first
or prayer. It is one of those questions which may
be argued ad infinitum, and which in the end pro-

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

duce the very smallest results. You remember bow
the Algonquins, when crossing Lake Superior, ad-
dressed certain prayers to Wohkonda, the Master of
Life, and then threw a handful of tobacco into the
lake. Now suppose we asked them the question,
What was your first object? to throw tobacco into
the lake or to invoke Wohkonda? What answer
could they possibly give ? Still that is the question
which we are asked to answer in the name of the
ancient poets of Vedic India.

Again, the Peruvian prayer addressed to Pacha-
camac is said to be recited at certain seasons. Suppose
it was recited at a festival connected with the return
of spring ; we are asked once more, Was the festival
instituted first, and then a prayer composed for the
occasion, or was the prayer composed to express
feelings of gratitude for the return of spring, and
afterwards repeated at every spring festival ?

No doubt, when we have such a case as the Emperor
of China offering an official address to the Deity, we
may be sure that the festival was ordained first and
the official ode ordered afterwards ; but even in such
an advanced state of civilization, we never hear that
the meat and the wine were placed on the altar by
themselves and as an independent act, and without
anything being said. On the contrary, they were
placed there as suggested by the poem.

If, then, we find a Vedic hymn used at the full-
inoon or new-moon sacrifices, are we to suppose that
the mysterious phases of the moon elicited at first
nothing but a mute libation of milk, and that at
a later time only hymns were composed in praise of
the solemn festival? That there are Vedic hymns

LAST ESSAYS.

which presuppose a very elaborate ceremonial and
a very complete priesthood, I was, I believe, the first
to point out ; but to say that all V edic hymns were
composed for ceremonial purposes is to say what can-
not be proved. At a later time they may all have
been included as part of the regular sacrifices, just as
every psalm is read in church on appointed days.
But we have only to look at some of the best-known
Vedic hymns and prayers, and we shall soon perceive
that they are genuine outpourings of personal feelings,
which had not to wait for the call of an officiating
priest before they could make their appearance. One
poet says : —

‘ Let me not yet, 0 Varuwa, enter into the house of clay ’ (the
grave) ; ‘ have mercy, Almighty, have mercy !

If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind, have
mercy, Almighty, have mercy !

Through want of strength, thou strong and bright god, have I
gone to the wrong shore ; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy !

Thirst came upon thy worshipper, though he stood in the midst
of the waters ; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy !

Whenever we men, 0 Varuwa, commit an offence before the
heavenly host, whenever we break thy law through thoughtless-
ness, have mercy. Almighty, have mercy ! ’

Now, I ask, had a poet to wait till a poem was
wanted for a funeral service, or for the sacrifice of
a horse, before he could compose such verses'? Is
there a single allusion to a priest, or to a sacrifice in
them ? That they, like the rest of the Rig-veda, may
have been recited during certain ceremonies, who
would deny ? But if we see how verses from different
hymns, and from different Masalas, or collections of
hymns, have to be patched together before they become
serviceable for sacrificial purposes, we can easily see
that the hymns must have existed as poems before

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

they were used by the priests at certain sacrifices.
Why should there have been a Rig-veda at all, that
is to say, a collection of independent hymns, if the
hymns had been composed simply to fit into the
sacrificial ceremonial ? The hymns and verses as
fitted for that purpose are found collected in the
Ya(/ur and Sama- vedas. What then was the object
of collecting the ten books of the Rig-veda, most of
them the heirlooms of certain old families, and not
of different classes of priests? Then, again, there is
what the Brahmanic theologians call tiha, that is, the
slight modification of certain verses so as to make
them serviceable at a sacrifice. Does not that show
that they existed first as independent of ceremonial
employment ? However, the strongest argument is
the character of the hymns themselves. As clearly
as some, nay, a considerable number, of them were
meant from the first to be used at well-established
sacrifices, others were clearly unfit for that purpose.
At what sacrifice could there be a call for the de-
spairing song of a gambler, for the dialogue between
Sarama and the robbers, for the address of Visvamitra
to the rivers of the Penjab, for the song of the frogs,
or for the metaphysical speculations beginning with
‘There was not nought, there was not ought’? As
part of a sacred canon any verse of the Rig-veda
might afterwards have been recited on solemn occa-
sions, but the question is, Did the inspiration come
from these solemn occasions, or did it come from the
heart? It is extraordinary to see what an amount
of ingenuity has been spent both by Vedic and Biblical
scholars on this question of the priority of ceremonial
or poetry ! But what has been gained by it in the

LAST ESSAYS.

end? For suppose that in Yedic India a completely
mute ceremonial had reached as great a perfection
and complication as the Roman Catholic ceremonial
in our time, would that prove that no one could then
or now have composed an Easter hymn or Christmas
carol spontaneously, and without any reference to
ecclesiastical employment ? When there is so much
real work to be done, why waste our time on dis-
entangling such cobwebs ?

When we consider that the Rig-veda contains more
than a thousand hymns, you will understand how
constant and intimate the intercourse must have been
between the Yedic poets and their gods. Some of
these hymns give us, no doubt, the impression of
being artificial, and in that sense secondary and late,
only we must not forget that what we call late in the
Veda cannot well be later than 1000 B.c. Here are
some more verses from a hymn addressed to Vanina,
the god of the all-embracing sky, the Greek Ouranos : —

1 However we break thy laws from day to day, men as we are,
0 god, Vanina.

Do not deliver us unto death, nor to the blow of the furious, nor
to the wrath of the spiteful !

To propitiate thee, O Varuna, we unbend thy mind with songs,
as the charioteer unties a weary steed.

When shall we bring hither the man who is victory to the
warriors? when shall we bring Varuna the far-seeing to be pro-
pitiated ?

He who knows the place of the birds that fly through the sky,
who on the waters knows the ships ;

He, the upholder of order, who knows the twelve months, with
the offering of each, and knows the month that is engendered
afterwards’ (evidently the thirteenth or intercalary month) :

‘ He who knows the track of the wind, the wide, the bright, the
mighty, and knows those who reside on high ;

He, the upholder of order, Varuna, sits down among his people ;
he, the wise, sits down to govern.

ANCIENT PRAYERS. 61

From thence, perceiving all wondrous things, he sees what has
been and what will be.

May he, the wise, make our paths straight all our days ; may he
prolong our life !

Vanina, wearing golden mail, has put on his shining cloak, the
spies sat down around him.’ (Here you see mythology and
anthropomorphism begin.)

‘ The god whom the scoffers do not provoke, nor the tormenters
of men, nor the plotters of mischief ;

He who gives to men glory, and not half glory, who gives it even
to ourselves.

Yearning for him, the far-seeing, my thoughts move onward, as
kine move to their pastures.

Let us speak together again, because my honey has been brought :
that thou mayest eat what thou likest, like a friend.’ (Now, here
people would probably say that there is a clear allusion to a sacri-
ficial offering of honey. But why should such an offering not be
as spontaneous as the words which are'uttered by the poet ?)

‘ Did I see the god who is to be seen by all, did I see the chariot
above the earth ? He must have accepted my prayers.’ (This
implies a kind of vision, while the chariot may refer to thunder
and lightning.)

‘ 0 hear this my calling, Varuwa, be gracious now ! Longing for
help, I have called upon thee.

Thou, 0 wise god, art lord of all, of heaven and earth ; hasten
on thy way.

That I may live, take from me the upper rope, loose the middle
and remove the lowest.’ (These ropes probably refer to the ropes
by which a victim is bound. Here, however, they are likewise
intended for the ropes of sin by which the poet, as he told us, felt
himself chained and strangled.)

These translations are perfectly literal ; they have
not been modernized or beautified, and they certainly
display before our eyes buried cities of thought and
faith, richer in treasures than all the ruins of Egypt,
of Babylon, or Nineveh.

Even what are called purely sacrificial hymns are
by no means without a human interest. One of the
earliest sacrifices consisted probably in putting a log
of wood on the fire of the hearth. The fire was called

LAST ESSAYS.

Agni, in Sanskrit, and we find the same name again,
not indeed in Greek, but in the Latin Ignis. If any
other gift was thrown into the fire the smoke seemed
to carry it up to heaven, and thus Agni became the
messenger and soon the mediator between men and
gods. He was called the youngest among the gods,
because he was new every morning. Here is a hymn
addressed to him : —

< Agni, accept this log which I offer thee, accept this my service ;
listen well to these my songs.

With this log, 0 Agni, may we worship thee, the son of strength,
conqueror of horses ! and with this hymn, thou high-born !

May we, thy servants, serve thee with songs, 0 granter of riches,
thou who lovest songs and delightest in riches.

Thou lord of wealth and giver of wealth, be thou wise and
powerful ; drive away from us the enemies !

He gives us rain from heaven, he gives us inviolable strength,
he gives us food a thousandfold.

Youngest of the gods, their messenger, their invoker, most
deserving of worship, come, at our praise, to him who worships
thee and longs for thy help.

For thou, 0 sage, goest wisely between these two creations
(heaven and earth, gods and men), ‘like a friendly messenger
between two hamlets.

Thou art wise, and thou hast been pleased : perform thou,

intelligent Agni, the sacrifice without interruption, sit down on
this sacred grass.’

That this hymn contains what may be called
secondary ideas, that it requires the admission of
considerable historical antecedents, is clear enough.
Agni is no longer a mere visible fire, he is the invisible
agent in the fire ; he has assumed a certain dramatic
personality; he is represented as high-born, as the
conqueror of horses, as wealthy and as the giver of
wealth, as the messenger between men and gods.
Why Agni, the fire, should be called the giver of rain
is not quite clear, but it is explained by the fire

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

ascending in a cloud of smoke, and by the cloud
sending down the prayed-for rain. The sacred grass
on which Agni is invited to sit down is the pile of
grass on the hearth or the altar of the house which
surrounds the fire, and the log of wood is the fuel
to keep the fire burning. All this shows an incipient
ceremonial which becomes more and more elaborate,
but there is no sign that it had begun to fetter the
wings of poetical inspiration.

The habit of praying, both in private and in public,
continued through all the periods of the history of
Indian religion. One phase only has to be excepted,
that of Buddhism, and this will have to be considered
when we examine what are called individual in
contradistinction to national religions. We need not
dwell here on those later prayers of the Brahmans,
v hich we find scattered about in the epic poems, in
the Purarias, and in the more modern sects established
in every part of the country. They are to us of
infeiior interest, though some of them are decidedly
beautiful and touching.

According to Schopenhauer every prayer addressed
to an objective deity is idolatrous. But it is important
to remark how much superior the idolatry of prayer
is to the idolatry of temple- worship. In India, more
particularly, the statues and images of their popular
gods are hideous, owing to their unrestrained symbolism
and the entire disregard of a harmony with nature,
let the prayers addressed to S'iva and Durga are
almost entirely free from these blemishes, and often
show a concept of Deity of which we ourselves need
not be ashamed.

Nor need we dwell long on the prayers of the

LAST ESSAYS.

ancient Greeks and Romans, because they are well
known from classical literature. We know how Priam
prays before he sets out on his way to the Greek
camp to ask for the body of his son. We know how
Nestor prays for the success of the embassy sent
to Achilles, and how Ulysses offers prayers before
approaching the camp of the Trojans. We find in
Homer penitential prayers , to confess sins and to ask
for forgiveness ; bidding prayers , to ask for favours ;
and thanksgiving prayers, praising the gods for having
fulfilled the requests addressed to them. We never
hear, however, of the Greeks kneeling at prayer.
The Greeks seem to have stood up while praying, and
to have lifted up their hands to heaven, or stretched
them forth to the earth. Before praying it was the
custom to wash the hands, just as the Psalmist says
(xxvi. 6) : ‘ I will wash mine hands in innocency : so
will I compass Thine altar, 0 Lord.’

That prayer, not only public, but private also, was
common among the Greeks we may learn from Plato
when he says that children hear their mothers every
day eagerly talking with the gods in the most earnest
manner, beseeching them for blessings. He also states,
in another place, that every man of sense before
beginning any important work will ask help of the
gods. Men quite above the ordinary superstitions of
the crowd, nay, men suspected of unbelief, were
known to pray to the gods. Thus Pericles is said,
before he began his orations, always to have prayed
to the gods for power to do a good work. May
I mention here what I have not seen mentioned
elsewhere, and what the widow of Sir Robert Peel
told Baron Bunsen, who told it me, that on the day

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

when Peel was going to deliver his decisive speech on
Tree Trade, she found him in his dressing-room on his
knees praying, before going to Parliament.

Most impressive are some of the prayers composed
by Greek thinkers, whose religion was entirely absorbed
m philosophy, but whose dependence on a higher power
remained as unshaken as that of a child. What can
be more reverent and thoughtful than the prayer
o Simplicius, at the end of his commentary on
Epictetus : —

.1 beseech Thee, O Lord, the Father, Guide of our reason to
make us mindful of the noble origin Thou hast thought worthy to
confer upon us ; and to assist us to act as becomes free agents ;
that we may be cleansed from the irrational passions of the body

inaTtW aUd §T'n thG Same’ USi*e them as instruments
m a fitting manner ; and to assist us to the right direction of the

liahtof S' th n itS Participati0n in what is real by the

light of truth. And thirdly, I beseech Thee, my Saviour entirely

wemTT dal;kfneSSir0m the eyes of our bouIs, in order thlt
p 7 know aright> as Homer says, both God and men.’ (Farrar
Paganism and Christianity, p. 44.) v ’

Equally wise are the words of Epictetus himself
(Discourses, ii. p. 16): —

Tho^wV0 T°0k Upr t0 God and say: 1)0 with henceforth as

nothinT th f am °ne, “ind With Thee- 1 am Th‘no- I decline
nothing that seems good to Thee. Send me whither Thou wilt

f nH .“Ur • WilL Wilt Th0U that 1 take office or live

I J i ff Xiemam at h°me 0r g0 int0 exile> he poor or rich,

I will defend Thy purpose with me in respect of all these.’

,, The ^Romans were more religious and more prayerful
han the Greeks, but they were less fluent in expressing
their sentiments. It is very characteristic that the
Komans, when praying, wrapped the toga round their
heads, so that they might be alone with their o-0d
undisturbed by the sights of the outer world. That

tells more than many a long prayer. That in praying

II. pi

LAST ESSAYS.

they turned the palms of their hands backward and
upward to heaven, shows that the Romans wished to
surrender themselves entirely to the will and pleasuie
of their gods. In later times the Romans became the
pupils of the Greeks in their religious as well as in
their philosophical views, so that when we lead
a prayer of Seneca it is difficult to say whethei it
breathes Greek or Roman thought. Seneca prays
(Clarke, The Great Religions, p. 333)

‘ We worship and adore the framer and former of the universe ;
governor, disposer, keeper ; Him on whom all things depend ;
mind and spirit of the world ; from whom all things spring ; by
whose spirit we live ; the divine spirit, diffused through all ; God
all-powerful ; God always present ; God above all other gods ; thee
we worship and adore.’

The religion of the Assyrians and Babylonians, as
far as we know it from inscriptions, must likewise be
classed as one of the national religions, whose founders
are unknown. Many of their prayers have been
deciphered and translated, but one almost hesitates to
quote them or to build any theories on them, because
these translations change so very rapidly from year
to year. Here is a specimen of an Assyrian prayer,

assigned to the year 650 B.c. :

‘ May the look of pity that shines in thine eternal face dispel my
griefs.

May I never feel the anger and wrath of the God.

May my omissions and my sins be wiped out.

May I find reconciliation with him, for I am the servant of his

power, the adorer of the great gods.

May thy powerful face come to my help ; may it shine like
heaven, and bless me with happiness and abundance of riches.

May it bring forth in abundance, like the earth, happiness and

every sort of good.’

If this is a correct translation, it shows much deeper
feelings and much more simplicity of thought than

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

the ordinary Babylonian prayers, which have been
translated by some of the most trusted of Cuneiform
scholars. They are so very stiff and formal, and
evidently the work of an effete priesthood, rather
than of sincere believers in visible or invisible gods.
Here follows one short specimen: —

‘0 my God, who art violent (against me), receive (my sun-
plication). v j v

0 my Goddess, thou who art fierce (towards me), accept (my
pra}Ter). v J

Accept my prayer (may thy liver be quieted).

0 my Lord, long-suffering (and) merciful (may thy heart be
appeased).

By day, directing unto death that which destroys me, 0 my
God, interpret (the vision).

0 my Goddess, look upon me and accept my prayer.

May my sin be forgiven, may my transgression be cleansed.

Let the yoke be unbound, the chain be loosed.

May the seven winds carry away my groaning.

May I strip off my evil so that the bird bear (it) up to heaven.
along7 Ule fiSh Cany aWaJ my trouble> maY the river carry (it)

May the reptile of the field receive (it) from me ; may the waters
of the river cleanse me as they flow.

Make me shine as a mask of gold.

May I be precious in thy sight as a goblet of glass.’

You see bow advanced and artificial the surround-
ings are in which the thoughts of these Babylonian
prayers move. There are cities and palaces, and
golden masks and goblets of glass, of all of which we
see, of course, no trace in really ancient or primitive
prayers, such as those of the Veda.

We have now even Accadian prayers, older than
those of Nineveh or Babylon, but even they smell of
temples and incense rather than of the fresh air of the
morning.

A more simple Accadian prayer is the following

LAST ESSAYS.

‘ God, my Creator, stand by my side,

Keep thou the door of my lips, guard thou my hands,

O Lord of Light.'

The following recommendation to pray is also
remarkable -

‘Pray thou, pray thou! Before the couch, pray!

Before the dawn is light, pray ! By the tablets and books, pray !
By the hearth, by the threshold, at the sun-rising,

At the sun-setting, pray1!’

We enter into a different atmosphere when we step
into the ruined temples of Egypt. Here, too, the
thoughts strike us as „the outcome of many periods
of previous thought, but they possess a massiveness
and earnestness which appeal to our sympathy. Here
is a specimen

‘Hail to thee, maker of all beings, ‘Lord of law, Father of the
Gods ; maker of men, creator of beasts ; Lord of grains, making
food for the beasts of the field. . . . The One alone without a second.

. . . King alone, single among the Gods ; of many names, unknown
is their number.

I come to thee, 0 Lord of the Gods, who has existed from the
beginning, eternal God, who hast made all -things that are. Thy
name be my protection; prolong my term of life to a good age,
may my son be in my place (after me) ; may my dignity remain
with him (and his) for ever, as is done to the righteous, who is
glorious in the house of the Lord.

Who then art thou, 0 my father Amon? Doth a father forget
his son ? Surely a wretched lot awaiteth him who opposes Thy
will ; but blessed is he who knoweth thee, for thy deeds proceed
from a heart of love. I call upon thee, my father Amon ! behold
me in the midst of many peoples unknown to me ; all nations are
united against me, and I am alone ; no other is with me. My many
warriors have abandoned me, none of my horsemen hath looked
towards me ; and when I called them, none hath listened to my
voice. But I believed that Amon is worth more to me than
a million of warriors, than a hundred thousand horsemen, and
ten thousands of brothers and sons, even were they all gathered
together. The work of many men is nought, Amon will prevail
over them.’

1 W. Tallack, The Inward Light and Christ’s Incarnation, p. 4.

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

This is a prayer full of really human feelings, and
it theiefore reminds us of ever so many passages in
other prayers. The desire that the son may outlive
the father, or that the older people may not weep over
the j oungei , meets us in a hymn of the Veda when
the poet asks— as who has not asked ?— that ‘ the gods
may allow us to die in order so that the old may not
weep over the young.’

The idea that. the help of Amon is better than
a thousand horsemen is re-echoed in many a psalm,
as when we read (Ps. cxviii. 9, 10), ‘It is better to
trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
All nations compassed me about : but in the name of
the Lord will I destroy them.’

If. we now turn our eyes from what we called
ethnic and national religions to those religions which
claim to be the work of an individual founder, and
are therefore called individual religions, we must
not imagine that they really came ready made out of
the brain of a single person. If the name individual
religion is used in that sense, the term would be
misleading, for every religion, like every language,
carries with it an enormous amount of accumulated
thought which the individual prophet may reshape
and revive, but which he could not possibly create
fr°m the beginning. The great individual religions
are Zoroastrianism, Mosaism, Christianity , Moham-
medanism, and Buddhism . They are all called after
the name of their supposed founders, and the fact
that they can appeal to a personal authority imparts
to them, no doubt, a peculiar character. But if we
take the case of Moses, the religion which he is
supposed to have founded sprang from a Semitic soil

LAST ESSAYS.

prepared for centuries for the reception of his doctrines.
We know now that even such accounts as that of the
Creation, the Fall of Man, the Deluge, and the Tower
of Babel have their parallels in the clay tablets of
Assyria, as deciphered by George Smith and others,
and that as there is a general Semitic type of language
which Hebrew shares in common with Babylonian,
Ai'abic, and Syriac, there is likewise a general type
of Semitic religion which forms the common back-
ground of all. In the case of Christianity, we know
that Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil ; and in
the case of Mohammedanism we may safely say that
without Judaism and without Christianity it would
never have sprung into existence. The ancient religion
of Persia, which is called Zoroastrianism, after its
reputed author, is in many respects a continuation,
in some a reform, of the more ancient Vedic religion ;
and exactly the same applies to Buddhism, which has
all its roots, even those with which it breaks, in the
earlier religion of the Brahmans. In one sense, there-
fore, I quite admit that the classification into ethnic,
national, and individual religions may be misleading,
unless it is carefully defined.

The first individual religion in India is Buddhism,
which sprang from Brahmanism, though on many
points it stands in opposition to it. This is par-
ticularly the case with regard to prayer. There
comes a time in the life of religions as in the life of
individuals when prayer in the sense of importunate
asking and begging for favours and benefits has to
cease, and when its place is taken by the simple
words, ‘ Thy will be done.’ But in Buddhism there
are, as we shall see, even stronger reasons why pra^ ei

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

in the ordinary sense of the word had to be surrendered.
I had some years ago two Buddhist priests staying
with me at Oxford. They had been sent from Japan,
which alone contains over thirty millions of Buddhists,
to learn Sanskrit at Oxford. As there was no one to
teach them the peculiar Sanskrit of the Buddhists,
and I did not like their going away to a German
university, I offered them my services. Of course,
we had many discussions, and I remember well their
strong disapprobation of prayer, in the sense of
petitioning. They belonged to the Mahayana Bud-
dhism, and though they did. not believe in a Supreme
Deity or a creator of the world, they believed in a
kind of deified Buddha, while the Hlnayana Buddhists
think of their Buddha as neither existent nor non-
existent. The Mahayanists adore their Buddha, they
worship him, they meditate on him, they hope to meet
him face to face in Paradise, in Sukhavati. But such
was their reverence for Buddha, and such was their
firm belief in the eternal order of the world, or in the
working of Karma, that it seemed to them the height
of impiety to pray, and to place their personal wishes
before Buddha. I asked one of them whether, if
he saw his child dying, he would not pray for
its life, and he replied, No, he could not; it would
be wrong, because it would show a want of faith !
‘And yet,’ I said to him, ‘you Buddhists have
actually prayer-wheels. What do you consider the
use of them?’

‘ O no,’ he said, c those are not prayer- wheels ; they
only contain the names and praises of Buddha, but
we ask for nothing in return.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘are not some of these wheels driven

LAST ESSAYS.

by the wind like a wind-mill, others by a river like
a water-mill % ’

My friend looked somewhat ashamed at first. But
he soon recovered himself, and said —

‘ After all, they remind people of Buddha, the law,
and the Church, and if that can be done by machines
driven by wind or water, is it not better than to
employ human beings who, to judge from the way in
which they rattle off their prayers in your chapels,
seem sometimes to be degraded to mere praying-
wheels 1 ’

But while we look in vain for bidding prayers in
the sacred literature of the Buddhists, we find in it
plenty of meditations on the Buddha and the Buddhas,
on saints, past and future. While Pallas (ii. p. 168)
tells us that the Buddhists in Mongolia have not even
a word for prayer, he gives us (ii. p. 386) specimens
which in other religions would certainly be included
under that name 1.

‘Thou, in whom innumerable creatures believe, tho\i Buddha,
conqueror of the hosts of evil ! Thou, omniscient above all beings,
come down to our world ! Made perfect and glorified in in-
numerable bygone revolutions ; always pitiful, always gracious,
lo, now is the right time to confer loving blessings on all creatures !
Bless us from thy throne, which is firmly established on a truly
divine doctrine, with wonderful benefits ! Thou, the eternal
redeemer of all creatures, incline thy face with thy immaculate
company towards our kingdom ! In faith we bow before thee.
Thou the perfecter of eternal welfare, dwelling in the reign of
tranquillity, rise and come to us, Buddha and Lord of all blessed
rest ! ’

Very different from Buddhism with regard to prayer
is Zoroastrianism. It encourages prayer in every
form, whether addressed to the Supreme Spirit,

1 Koeppen, Religion ties Buddha, i. p. 555.

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

Ahuramazda, or to subordinate deities. All that we
know of ancient Zoroastrian literature is, in fact,
more or less liturgical and full of prayers, whether
actual petitions or hymns of praise, or confessions of
sin or expressions of gratitude for favours received.
Some of these prayers belong to the most ancient
period of Zend literature, and are in consequence
difficult to interpret. In giving a translation of the
following specimens, I have availed myself of the
most recent and most valuable work on the Yasna
by M. Darmesteter : —

1. ‘ This I ask thee, tell me the truth, 0 Ahura ! Fulfil my desire
as I fulfil yours, 0 Mazda ! I wish to resemble thee, and teach my
friends to resemble thee, in order to give thee pious and friendly
help. 0 to be with Vohu Mano ! (the good spirit).

2. This I ask thee, tell me the truth, 0 Ahura ! What is the
first of things in the world of good, the good which fulfils the
desires of him who pursues it ? For he who is friend to thee,
O Mazda, always changes evil to good, and rules spiritually in both
worlds.

3. This I ask thee, tell me the truth, 0 Ahura ! Who was the
creator, the first father of Asha (Right)? Who has opened a way
for the sun and the stars? Who makes the moon to wax and
wane ? These are the things and others which I wish to know

0 Mazda !

4* This I ask thee, tell me the truth, 0 Ahura 1 WIio without
supports has kept the earth from falling? Who has made the
waters and the plants ? Who has set winds and clouds to run
quickly ? Who is the creator of Vohu Mano, O Mazda ?

5; This I ask thee, tell me the truth, 0 Ahura ! What good
artist has made light and darkness ? What good artist has made
sleep and waking ? Who has made the dawn, noon, and night ?
Who has made the arbiter of justice ?

6. This I ask thee, tell me the truth, 0 Ahura ! Who has created
with Khshatlira (royal power) aspiration for perfect piety ? Who
has placed love in the heart of a father when he obtains a son ?

1 wish to help thee powerfully, 0 Mazda, 0 beneficent spirit

creator of all things ! ’—(From Gatlm Vshtavaitt, Darmesteter, Yasna’
p. 286.) ’

LAST ESSAYS.

And again : —

1. 1 Towards what country shall I turn? Where shall I go to
offer my prayer? Relations and servants leave me. Neither my
neighbours nor the wicked tyrants of the country wish me well.
How shall I succeed in satisfying thee, 0 Mazda Ahura?

2. I see that I am powerless, 0 Mazda ! I see that I am poor
in flocks, poor in men. I cry to thee, look at me, O Ahura !
I expect from thee that happiness which friend gives to friend.
To the teaching of Vohu Mano (belongs) the fortune of Asha.

3. When will come to us the increasers of days? When will the
thoughts of the saints (the Saoshyants) arise, in order to support
by their works and their teaching the good world ? To whom will
Yohu Mano come for prosperity ? As to me, 0 Lord, I desire thy
instruction.

4. In the district and in the country the wicked prevents the
workers of holiness from offering the cow, but the violent man will
perish by his own acts. Whoever, 0 Mazda, can prevent the wicked
from ruling and oppressing makes wise provision for the flocks.’ —
(From Gatha Ushtavaiti, Darmesteter, Yasna, p. 30.)

In the Zoroastrian religion prayer is no longer left
to the sudden impulses of individuals. It has become
part of the general religious worship, part of the
constant fight against the powers of darkness and
evil, in which every Zoroastrian is called upon to
join. A person who neglects these statutable prayers,
whether priest or layman, commits a sin. Every
Parsi has to say his prayer in the morning and in the
evening, besides the prayers enjoined before each
meal, and again at the time of a birth, a marriage, or
a death. Three times every day the Parsi has to
address a prayer to the sun in his various stations,
while the priest, who has to rise at midnight, has four
such prayers to recite. These three prayers, at sun-
rise, at noon, and at sunset, and possibly at midnight,
were not unknown to the people of the Veda, and
they became more and more fixed in later times.

Mohammed gave great prominence to prayer as an

ANCIENT PEAYEES.

outward form of religion. After the erection of the
first mosque at Medinah he ordained the office of the
crier or muezzin, who from the tower had to call
the faithful five times every day to the recital of
their prayers. The muezzin cried: —

‘ God is great ! (four times). I bear witness that there is no god
but God (twice). I bear witness that Mohammed is the Apostle
of God (twice). Come hither to prayers (twice). Come hither to
salvation (twice). God is great. There is no other god but God.’

In the early morning the crier adds : —

‘ Prayer is better than sleep.’

The five times for this official prayer are : — (i)
Between dawn and sunrise. (2) After the sun has
begun to decline. (3) Midway between this. (4)
Shortly after sunset. (5) At nightfall.

These prayers are farz, or incumbent ; all others
are 7 xafi, supererogatory, or sunnah, in accordance
with the practices of the prophet.

Besides these public prayers, private devotions are
often recommended by Mohammed, but we possess
few specimens of these personal prayers. Mohammed,
when speaking of the birds in the air, says that each
one knoweth its prayer and its praise, and God
knoweth what they do. He recommends his followers
to be instant in prayer and almsgiving. ‘ When the
call to prayer soundeth on the day of congregation
(Friday), then hasten to remember God,’ he says,

‘ and abandon business ; that is better for you, if ye
only knew ; and when prayer is done, disperse in the
land, and seek of the bounty of God.’ The following
may serve as a specimen of a simple Mohammedan
prayer. It has sometimes been called Mohammed’s
Paternoster : —

LAST ESSAYS.

‘ Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds !

The compassionate, the merciful !

King of the day of judgement !

Thee we worship, and Thee we ask for help.

Guide us in the straight way,

The way of those to whom Thou art gracious,

Not of those upon whom is Thy wrath, nor of the erring ! ’

The only two of the individual religions whose
prayers we have not yet examined are the Jewish and
Christian, and they are so well known that little
need be said about them here. Little of any im-
portance is said in the Old Testament about ceremonial
prayer, as a recognized part of the public religious
service, but private prayer is everywhere taken for
granted. When we read in Isa. i. 15, ‘And when
ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes
from you : yea, when ye make many prayers, I will
not hear,’ this seems to refer to public rather than to
private prayers ( brj^oaCq ). At a later time we find
among the Jews, as among Persians, Brahmans, and
Egyptians also, certain times fixed for prayer, generally
morning, noon, and evening. This is so natural a
thought that there is no need to imagine that one
nation borrowed the twofold, threefold, or even the
fourfold prayer from another. The Jews were gene-
rally, like the Greeks, standing while saying their
prayers, but we also hear of cases where they bent
their knees, threw themselves on the ground, lifted
up their hands, smote their breasts, or in deep
mourning placed their head between their knees.
The proper place for private prayer was the small
chamber in the house, but we know how, when
prayer had become purely ceremonial, pious people
loved to pray standing in the synagogues and the

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

corners of the streets. The Hebrew Psalms, most of
which are prayers, stand out quite unique among the
prayers of the world by their simplicity, their power,
and majesty of language, though, like all collections
of prayers, the collection of the Psalms too contains
some which we could gladly spare. There are other
prayers put into the mouth of Abraham, Moses, David,
Solomon, and other prominent characters by the
authors of the historical books of the Old Testament,
but hardly one of them approaches the highest
standard of the Psalms. In substance the prayer of
Elijah, for instance, is but little superior to the prayer1
of the priests of Baal, and the slaughter of the priests
of Baal by Elijah’s own hand, after his prayer had
been granted, seems indeed more worthy of a priest
of Baal than of the priest and prophet of the all-
merciful Jehovah. Some of the private prayers of the
Jews have been preserved in the Talmud. They are
very beautiful, and the Rabbis often pride themselves
on being able to match every petition of the Lord’s
prayer in the Talmud. Why should they not ? People
who are at all inclined to pray have all much the
same to say, so much so that there are few prayers in
the Sacred Books of the non-Christian religions in
which, with certain restrictions, a Christian is not
able to join with perfect sincerity. The language
changes, but the heart remains the same. We do not
deny that there is progress, that there is what is
called evolution, or, more correctly, historical con-
tinuity, in the different religions of the world.
Another important element is the parallelism of
various religions, which helps us to understand what
is obscure and seemingly without antecedents in one

LAST ESSAYS.

religion by the fuller light derived from others. So
powerful is the stream of religious development that
it often seems to land our boat on the very opposite
shore from where it started. While the ancient
prayers seem to say, Let our will be done, the last
and final prayer of the world is, Let Thy will be done.
And yet we can watch every step by which the
human mind or the human heart changed from the
one prayer to the other. Here it is where an his-
torical or comparative study of religions bears its
most precious fruit. It teaches the followers of
different religions to understand each other, and if
we can but understand each other, we can more easily
bear with each other. My Buddhist pupil would not
pray even for the life of his child. What did he mean
by this, if not, ‘ Thy will be done ’ ? Many a Christian
mother will say, ‘ Thy will be done,’ yet she will add
complainingly, ‘ If Thou hadst been here, he would
not have died.’

INDIAN FABLES
AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM1.

NO country has, I believe, suffered so much from
what are called ‘ travellers’ tales ’ as India.
Before it had been discovered or invaded by Alexander
the Great, it seemed to the rest of the world surrounded
by a halo of fable and mystery. And even after it
had been brought within the horizon of other nations
of antiquity, it still continued to be looked upon as
a land of wonders and fairy-tales. Almost anything
that was told of its natural products, or of the
primaeval wisdom of its inhabitants, was readily
believed, repeated, and even exaggerated by successive
writers. The ancient Greek writers knew really very
little about India, but almost all they have to say of
it bears this mysterious and marvellous stamp.

Homer probably knew nothing about India. If some
scholars hold that his twofold Ethiopians were meant
for the inhabitants of India, all we can say is, that,
like so many other things, it is possible, but that,
from the very nature of the case, it can neither be
proved nor disproved. The Homeric name Aithiops
is no doubt connected with aitko = ‘ to burn,’ and may
have been meant originally for people with burnt or
dark faces, while aithops, as applied to metal and

1 Nineteenth Century, May, 1893.

LAST ESSAYS.

wine, may be translated by ‘fiery ’ or ‘ ruddy.’ Knowing
that India was the richest source of fables, which
in later times were spread over the whole world,
Welcker1 has put forward a conjecture that Aisopos,
the fabulous inventor of fables, was originally Aithdpos ,
a black man, possibly from India. The change of th
into s is, no doubt, irregular, but, with all respect for
the sacredness of phonetic laws, we ought not to shut
our eyes to the fact that in proper names, and more
particularly in names of mythology and fable, anomalies
and local dialectic varieties occur which would not be
tolerated in ordinary words. The change of th into s
would be perfectly legitimate, for instance, in the
Aeolic 2 and in the Doric 3 dialects, and it can easily
be understood how a proper name, formed according
to the phonetic rules of one dialect, might be taken
over and remain unchanged in others, even if their
phonetic laws were different.

In Germany, for instance, if a man is called Schmidt
at Berlin, he would not be called Smid at Hamburg,
nor should we call him Smith in England. We call
the composer Wagner, not Waggoner. If, therefore,
the old fable poet Aithdpos became first known in
Greece under his Aeolic name of Aisopos, there would
have been little inducement to change his name back
into Aithdpos. This is a consideration that has been
far too much neglected in the treatment of mythological
and other proper names, and thei'e is no phonetic bar
against Aesdpos having meant originally the same as
Aithiops, burnt or dark-faced. If we might go a step
further, and take Aithiops as an old name of the
inhabitants of India or the far East, this would, no

3 Ahrens, § 36, 2. 3 Ibid. § 7.

1 Rhein. Mus. , vi. p. 366 seq.

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 81

doubt, be a great help in enabling us to account for
the piesence of certain fables in Greece which are
nearly identical with ancient fables in India, but
occur in Greek literature long before Alexander’s
expedition bad opened a road for intellectual and
literary intercourse between India and Greece. It is
a well-established fact that many of our fables, more
paiticularly the animal fables, had their cradle in
India, and were exported on well-known historical
high roads from the East to the West. But there are
some which, unless we claim them as common Aryan
pioperty, or as the natural outcome of our common
humanity, must somehow have found their way from
India to Persia and Greece, long before a Greek soldier
had set foot on the sacred soil of Aryavarta.

W e find lor instance, that Plato, when speaking
of all the gold that goes into Sparta, while nothing
comes out of it, shows himself perfectly familiar with
the Aesopian myth or fable— Kara rdv AlaA-nov M vdov —
of the fox declining to enter the lion’s cave because
he saw how all the footsteps went into the cave but
none came out of it. The same old fable appears in
the Sanskrit Pa/i&atantra, only told there of a jackal
instead of a fox. If the Aesopian fables had come
from India, this coincidence would be accounted for,
though, of course, the Pa«/catantra, in which it is
found, is only a modern collection of far more ancient
Indian fables. But we must never forget that what
is possible in one place is possible in other places also.
The observation of footprints going into a cave and
none coming out of it was one that could hardly have
escaped shepherds and hunters in any country, and
1 Select Essays , i. 509.

II.

LAST ESSAYS.

we actually find the same application of nulla vestigia
retrorsum in a fable related by the Kaffirs in South
Africa.

Plato seems well acquainted also with the fable of
the donkey in a lion’s skin1. The Greek proverb
ovos irapa Kvixaiovs seems to be applied to men boasting
before people who have no means of knowing their
character or testing their statements. It presupposes
the existence of some kind of fable of a donkey
appearing in a lion’s skin. In the Pa«&atantras the
fable is told of a dyer who, being too poor to feed his
donkey, put a tiger’s skin over him and sent him into
his neighbour’s field. Here he browsed unmolested
till one day he saw a female donkey. Thereupon the
disguised tiger began to bray, and the owner of
the field, now summoning up courage, came and
killed him.

Here the coincidences ai'e so minute that one feels
more inclined to admit an actual borrowing, always
supposing that Aesop could have introduced some of
the Eastern fables from India to the Greeks of Asia
Minor before the time of Alexander the Great.

After Homer’s time, the first Greek traveller, or
rather sailor, who knew anything about India from
personal experience was Sky lax, who, at the command
of Darius, undertook his voyage of discovery to the
mouth of the Indus about 509 B.c. Unfortunately
the account of his expedition which he is said to have
written is lost to us, but Hekataeos of Miletos, who
died in 486 B.c., knew it and relied on it in his own
account of India.

This work of Hekataeos too is lost, but it served as
1 Kratyl, p. 41 1.

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 83

an authority to Herodotus, who in what he has to say
of India relies chiefly on him and on the information
which he himself could gain from people in Persia.

Herodotus tells us the first traveller's tale about
India.. A traveller’s tale, however, need not be an
intentional falsehood. Travellers’ tales arise from
vdy. different sources. There is in many people an
irresistible tendency not only to admire, but also to
magnify. This may be called a very pardonable
weakness. It is quite right that we should never
lose the power of admiring ; it is quite right that we
should always look up to things and to men also, and
have eyes for what is great and noble in them rather
than for what is small and mean. A traveller who
has lost the gift of admiring would far better stay at
home. But we may admire and yet praise with
discrimination and moderation. There are people
with whom everything is grand, awfully grand,
tiemendous, colossal, or, as the French say, pyramidal ;
m fact, to use a more homely expression, all their
geese are swans. I do not speak of people who admire
because what they admire is somehow connected with
themselves. When parents admire their children or
grandchildren, when teachers praise their pupils, when
every one declares his own college, it may be, his own
boat, his own university, his own country, the best in
the world, we may call it parental love, appreciation
of rising merit, loyalty and patriotism, and all the
rest, though in the end we cannot help suspecting
that there is in all this a minute dash of selfish-
ness.

But even apart from all selfish motives, there are
people who cannot resist giving a high colouring to

LAST ESSAYS.

all they have seen or heard, who delight in the
marvel] ous, if only to make people stare, and who
enjoy that subtle sense of superiority which arises
from having seen or heard what nobody else has seen
or is ever likely to see or hear. Nearly all ghost
stories of which we hear so much at present arise,
I believe, from that source. We all know perfectly
well that no one has ever seen a ghost ; for a ghost
that can be seen, that is, produce vibrations which
impinge on our eyes, must be something material, and
ceases ipso facto to be a ghost. But there seems to be
something distinguished and aristocratic in having
seen a ghost. It is like having been presented to the
Pope or the Sultan, or like having seen the sea-serpent.
To express any doubt or to attempt anything like
cross-examination is considered as almost rude, if not
unorthodox. Here lies the real danger of travellers,
and here is one source of what we call travellers’
tales. But there is another source, namely simple
misapprehension. Unless a traveller is familiar with
the language of the people whom he undertakes to
describe, misunderstandings are inevitable. We all
know the mistakes which Frenchmen make when
describing the manners and customs of the English,
and if we have our laugh at them, we may be quite
sure that they have their laugh at us. I remember
a distinguished friend of mine whose book on England
has become classical in France, expressing his surprise
to me that his English landlady had brought him
a beef-steak with buttered toast. To him this was
but another proof of the low state ot culinary art in
England. The fact was, the poor woman had taken
his pronunciation of the word jiotatoes for buttered

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 85

toast, and bad carried out his orders as well as she could,
(in pied de la lettre. If that happens in our days of
tiee international intercourse, how much more must
an ancient Greek, when travelling alone in Egypt or
Persia, have been liable to misunderstand what he
heard and saw, and what could hardly be explained to
him except by signs and gestures? Nor must we
forget that there are people who take a mischievous
pleasure in telling strangers what is supposed to
amuse them, but what they are hardly intended
to believe. If a F f enchman were to ask an Englishman
whethei husbands may still sell their wives in
Smithfield market, I should not be at all surprised if,
from sheer delight in mischief, he were told by some
wag to go to the market and convince himself of the
cruelty of the English law and of English husbands.
It happened to me only the other day that a most
intelligent German professor, who had been dining in
several colleges, assured me that in Oxford men and
women went about in the streets ringing a bell to
summon the undergraduates from the streets to their
dinners in Hall. Some friend had told him so, he had
carefully entered it in his note-book, and I had the
greatest difficulty in persuading him that he had been
chaffed, and that the men who rang the bell in the
streets were simply trying to sell the Oxford Times.
lien were much the same thousands of years ago as
they are now, and there is no disrespect in supposing
that what happened to a German professor in Oxford
might have happened to Herodotus in Egypt or to
Ctesias in Persia.

Herodotus was not himself in India, nor had he any
books on India which he could have consulted except

LAST ESSAYS.

those of Skylax and Hekataeus. But though he did
not reach India he was in Persia, and Persia and India
were such near neighbours that there were probably
many commercial travellers from India in Persia, and
from Persia in India. Certainly some of the things
he tells us about India sound very much like stories
of commercial travellers, possibly misunderstood by
Herodotus himself, or palmed off on him by a waggish
fellow traveller. He probably asked how it came to
pass that India was so rich in gold, and he was told
(iii. 102) that in the desert north of Kashmir there
were ants larger than foxes, who dug up the gold.
He believed it. How an animal can be an ant with
six legs, and yet as large as a fox with four legs, he
does not explain. Some of these ants, however, he tells
us, and had probably been told so himself, were caught
and brought to Persia. These fox-like ants, or ant-like
foxes, he says, make themselves dwellings beneath
the earth, and in doing so dig up the sand, which is
full of gold. In order to collect this gold the Indians
tie three camels together, a female in the middle, one
that has just had a foal, and two males on each side.
The rider sits on the female camel, and after he has
filled his bags with gold he rides away full gallop,
followed by the ants, who, it seems, want to recover
their gold. The female camel, wishing to get home
to her young one, runs so fast that the rider escapes
from the pursuit of the ants, and brings home his bags
full of gold.

Many explanations have been proposed of these
ants. A recent traveller suggested that the ants were
simply the inhabitants of the country who lived in
caves and were clothed in a peculiar way. But many

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTEKIC BUDDHISM 87

years ago, in 1843 Professor Wilson bad called
attention to the gold mentioned in the Mahabharata,
and brought as tribute to Yudbishi/dra from the
Tibetan borderlands. This gold is called in Sanskrit
ant-gold, because it is dug up by ants which are
called pipilikas in Sanskrit 2.

Now here we clearly see that the poet of the
Mahabharata believed that the so-called ant-gold was
dug up by ants. Everything else must have been
added by the Indians who told the Persians, or by
the Persians who told Herodotus. But we may go
even a step further. Pipilika, or ant-gold, need not
have meant gold dug up by ants, but gold found
almost on the surface, so that ants might dig it up.
Travellers’ tales could easily have supplied all the
rest. When we speak of virgin-gold, we do not mean
that it was dug up by virgins, but that it is as pure
as a virgin. In the same manner, gold lying so near
the surface that it might be dug up by ants could
well have been called ant-gold.

The Greek writer who is responsible for most
travellers tales about India is Ctesias, who lived in
Persia as physician to the king Artaxerxes Mnemon.
His books on India and Persia are lost, but they
have often been quoted, and there is a large collection
of fragments. He had a very bad reputation even
among the ancient Greeks on account of the incredi-
ble stories which he told. In fact he is simply called
a liar. But it should be stated that many of his in-
credible stories are not pure inventions, but were due

1 Journ. Roy. Asiatic Soc., vii. p. 143.

2 Tad vai pipilikam nama uddhn'taw yat pipilikaU ffMarupaw
dronamayam aharshu/i pungraso rm'pa/t.

LAST ESSAYS.

to such misunderstandings as are almost inevitable
between people speaking different languages. We
know, for instance, that the Hindus were very fond
of describing hostile neighbours as evil spirits or
Rakshasas. All the hideous features which their
imagination had conjured up in describing uncanny
spirits, ghosts, ogres, and goblins were afterwards
transferred to the more or less savage tribes with
whom they came in contact in India, or on the
frontiers of India. It is not unusual, even with us,
to hear the Kafirs talked of as black devils. No
wonder that travellers who heard these descriptions
of half-imaginary beings, or of black devils, should
have taken them for descriptions of real beings in
India. Anyhow, we can prove in several cases that
what Ctesias and others represent as real monsters
living in some part of India correspond with the
devils of Hindu folklore. He tells us, for instance,
of a real race of men who lived on the mountains
where the Indian reed grows, and where their number,
he says, is no less than 30,000. Their wives bear
offspring once only in their whole lifetime. Their
children have teeth of perfect whiteness, both the
upper set and the under, and the hair both of their
head and of their eyebrows is from their infancy
quite grey, whether they be boys or girls. Indeed,
every man among them, till he reaches his thirtieth
year, has all the hair on his body white, but from
that time forward it begins to turn black, and by the
time they are sixty there is not a hair to be seen upon
them but what is black. These people, both men and
women alike, have eight fingers on each hand and
eight toes on each foot. They are a very warlike

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 89

people, and five thousand of them, armed with bows
and spears, follow the banners of the king of the
Indians. Their ears, he adds, are so large that they
cover their arms as far as the elbows, while at the
same time they cover all the back, and the one ear
touches the other.

Now this is clearly a traveller’s tale, and yet it is
not a mere invention, but, like most fables, it has
a kernel ot truth surrounded by a film of misunder-
standing. I mean, the Indians themselves had
imagined monsters of that description, and had intro-
duced them into their popular poetry as either hostile
and fiendish powers, or, in some cases, as helpful
spirits also. We find exactly the same in our own
mediaeval poetry, and while there is a certain same-
ness and tameness about the angels which human
imagination has called into existence, the brood of
devils, whether in poetry or in painting, displays
a, most wonderful wealth and variety of imagination.
It seems to admit of no doubt that Ctesias or his
friends, whether Persians or Indians— he tells us that
he actually saw Indians, two women and five men,

and states that their complexion was fair, not black

mistook these more or less legitimate creations of
a wild fancy for real beings. Some of their features
can be clearly traced back to their true source, while
others may or may not be embellishments, due to his
witnesses, or to his own excited brain. The Indians
are, for instance, perfectly well acquainted with a race
called Ekagarbhas, of which the Greek kvorU rovres
may be a literal translation. Their women, according
to the Purauas, have offspring once only in their
whole life, but instead of living on the Indus or

LAST ESSAYS.

Ganges, they are located by the Hindu poets in
a division of the terrestrial heaven. In the epic
poetry of India 1 another race is mentioned called
Kamapravarana (lit. those who used their ears as
a covering), who dwelt in the southern region. Skylax
already had mentioned a race whom he calls ’UtoXikvoi,
having shovel-sized ears, and at a later time Mega-
sthenes also speaks of ’ Evootokoltcu , that is, people who
slept in their ears. It is possible that these were
races who had artificially distended their ears, a custom
which we find among other savages also, but it is
possible also that what are called ears were originally
lappets, made of skins or metal, protecting the ears
in battle ; nay, it has been suggested that, as in the
case of the god Ganesa, some of these imaginary races
were represented with elephant-heads, in which the
ears would naturally form a very prominent feature.

However that may be, I think we are justified in
saying that Ctesias was not a simple liar, or a traveller
who thought he could say anything as long as it
amused his readers. It seems that he simply lent
a willing ear to the more or less imaginative Orientals
with whom he came in contact. He had a taste for
the marvellous, he seized on it, and allowed himself
to magnify what had caught his own fancy. The
temptation was much greater in his time, as there
was no one likely to control his statements or to
contradict him. This, I believe, is the genesis of most
travellex-s’ tales ; and what is curious is, that there
has always been a large public delighting in what
is marvellous and absurd, nay, taking an actual pride
in their ability to believe it all.

1 Maliabli. iii. 297; v. 16137.

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTEBIC BUDDHISM 91

Marvellous stories about India continued to be told,
not only in ancient times, when there was little chance
of checking them, hut during the whole of the Middle
Ages. Even Marco Polo cannot be quite absolved
from the charge of romancing, and it is curious to
observe how some of the very stories which we see
in Ctesias turn up again in Marco Polo’s Travels.
Ctesias speaks, for instance, of people with heads of
dogs, the Kynohephaloi, and he states that they have
large and hairy tails, both men and women. The
story of the tails may possibly be traced back to such
names as VunaZ/sepa, $unaApu/c&Aa, $unolangula, all
meaning Dog-tail, and belonging to persons mentioned
in the Veda. We have lately heard a good deal of
how it came to pass that during the Middle Ages the
French believed that Englishmen had tails °(Angli
caudati). That the heads of certain savage races
were like the heads of dogs is, no doubt, within the
limits of possibility, and that they were black, had
teeth, tails, and voices of dogs, would soon follow.
Some baboons are called Kynokephaloi, and as we
know from the Ramayana that the army of Rama
included baboons or Vaneevas, who, however, like
the Kynokephaloi of Ctesias, understood and spoke
the language of the people (p. 35), we see here, too,
some vague elements from which Ctesias could well
have framed his fairy-tales. What is curious is, that
Marco Polo, when describing the Andaman Islanders,
should use the same expression, and describe them
as people having heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes
likewise; in fact, in the face they are, he says, just
like big mastiff-dogs — they are no better than wild
beasts.

LAST ESSAYS.

The persistence of these stories is extraordinary.
Not long ago Babu Sohari Das, in his book on the
manners and customs of the Hindus, related that an
old woman once told him that her husband, a sepoy
in the British army, had told her that he had himself
seen a people who slept on one ear and covered them-
selves with the other L But I must linger no longer
on these early travellers’ tales about India, and
proceed to those of more recent origin.

One would have thought that after the discovery
of the sea road to India in the sixteenth century, and
still more after the discovery of the ancient literature
of India, through Sir William Jones and his fellow
workers, these tales would have ceased. And so they
did to a certain extent. We hear no more of races
with dogs’ heads, with one eye, or with one leg on
which they managed to run faster than anybody else,
nor of people with one foot so large that they were
able to use it as a parasol when lying on their backs
in hot weather. But a new and equally strange class
of fables has taken their place. India continued
to be considered as the home of a people possessed
of mysterious wisdom. As it had been proved that
Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, was clearly
related to Greek, Latin, and the other Aryan lan-
guages, it was supposed that all these languages were
derived from Sanskrit, and came from India; and,
as some of the Greek deities had been traced back
to Vedic deities, India was believed to have been the
birthplace of all the Greek gods. India was, in fact,

1 Domestic Manners and Customs of the Hindus. Benares, 1S60. Ind.
Ant. (May, 1877), p. 133, n.

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 93

looked upon as a kind of primaeval paradise, and
people felt thoroughly convinced that if the Brahmans
would only be more communicative we should find
in their ancient literature the germs of all the wisdom
and religions of the world, Judaism and Christianity
not excluded. The Pandits were sent for. They were
told what, according to the Old Testament, the history
of the world had really been, how there had been an
Adam and Eve, and a Deluge, and a Noah, with his
three sons ; and afterwards an Abraham and his wife
Sarah, and all the rest. They were flattered by being
assured that all these things must occur in their own
sacred writings, and that otherwise they would not
be true. They were actually offered rewards if they
would only communicate what was wanted. And
here, as elsewhere, demand created supply, and a very
able scholar, Lieutenant Wilford, sent a number of
articles to be published in the Asiatic Researches, in
which Adam and Eve, and the Deluge, and Noah,
with his sons, Abraham and Sarah, nay, even Isaac'
appeared all in due order. These articles produced
a great consternation all over Europe. Sir William
Jones was asked to examine the Sanskrit originals,
and his decision was in favour of their genuineness’
What more could be required? There were the
Sanskrit MSS., and in them there were Adam and
Eve, and Noah, and Abraham, and all the rest. It
was no use to remonstrate and to say that such things
were impossible, quite as impossible as when some
years ago Shapirah offered the original MSS. of the
Pentateuch, written by Moses himself. Scholars might
say that Moses did not write, that no cursive Hebrew
alphabet existed at that early time; the majority

LAST ESSAYS.

were, as usual, in favour of the impossible— viz. of
our possessing at last the original scrolls written
by the hand of Moses. So it was here. Scholars
might show that after the Semitic nations had once
become Semitic, and the Aryan nations Aryan, there
was no community of language and religion possible
between them. The more incredible things are, the
more ready people seem to be to believe them.
However, the Nemesis came at last. The MSS. of
Lieutenant "Wilford were examined once more, and
it was found that the leaves containing the Old
Testament stories had all been skilfully foisted in.
Of course, Pandits are able to write Sanskrit even
now, and tar better than our classical scholais can
write Latin. However, the curious part is, that even
after the whole matter had been cleared up, alter
Sir William Jones had openly declared that he had
been deceived, after Lieutenant Wilford had in the
most honourable way expressed his regret for what
had happened, these articles crop up again and again,
like Australian rabbits. They continue to be quoted,
they are quoted even now, till it seems almost im-
possible ever to exterminate them.

Another more recent case is that of a Frenchman,
M. Jacolliot. He was President of the Court of Justice
at Chandernagore, and, being a judge, I need not
say how constantly he is quoted by his admirers as
a judge, and as the highest authority in judging
of evidence. He has written a number of books .
I saw the other day an advertisement of his works
in twenty-five volumes. The best known is his La
Bible dans VInde. In it his object is to show that
our civilization, our religion, our legends, our gods,

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 95

lia\e come to us from India, after passing in succession
through Egypt, Persia, Judaea, Greece, and Italy.
This statement, we are told, has been admitted by
almost all Oriental scholars. This is a strange as-
sertion. I do not know of a single Oriental scholar
who has admitted this statement. Even Professor
Whitney in America calls M. Jacolliot ‘a bungler and
a humbug V The Old and New Testaments, we are
told by M. Jacolliot, are found in the Vedas, and the
texts quoted by the French judge in support of his
assertion are said to leave it without doubt. Brahma
created Adima — i.e. Adam — and gave him for com-
panion Heva. He appointed the island of Ceylon
lor their residence. Then he gives us a most charmino-
idyll of the life of Adima and Heva in paradise^
extracts from which may be read in Selected Essays
n. p. 479.

No one acquainted with Sanskrit or Pali literature
can doubt for a single moment that all the so-called
translations from ancient Sanskrit texts are mere
invention, whatever M. Jacolliot’s friends may say
to the contrary. All that can possibly be said for
him is what I said about Herodotus and Ctesias.
He may have misunderstood what was told him, he
may have received buttered toast instead of potatoes,
or he may have been taken in as Ctesias was, nay’
as Lieutenant Wilford was. He confesses as much
himself. ‘ One day,’ he writes 2, ‘ when we were read-
ing the translation of Manu by Sir W. Jones, a note
ed us to consult the Indian commentator, Kulhika
Bhatta, when we found an allusion to the sacrifice
of a son by his father prevented by God Himself
Isis> '• P- 47- 2 Selected Essays, ii. p. 474.

LAST ESSAYS.

after He had commanded it. We then had only one
idee fixe — namely, to find again in the dark mass
of the religious books of the Hindus the original
account of°that event. We should never have suc-
ceeded but for “ the complaisance ” of a Brahman with
whom we were reading Sanskrit, and wTho, yielding
to our request, brought us from the library of his
pagoda the works of the theologian Ramatsariar, which
have yielded us such precious assistance in this

volume.’

Now I say again there is no scholar who knows
Sanskrit or Pali, whether he has lived in India or not,
who would not simply smile at all this. I said so
when Jacolliot’s book first appeared, and I am sorry
to say I was in consequence insulted and almost
assaulted in my own house by an irate admirer of
Jacolliot’s. However, even Jacolliot has been outbid
by M. Edouard Schuri, whose eloquent article on the
Legend of Krishna was actually accepted and pub-
lished by the Revue des Deux Mondes of 1888,

pp. 285-321. .

You can easily understand that it is represented
as the height of professional conceit that scholars like
myself, who have never been in India, should venture
to doubt statements made by persons who have spent
many years in that country. This has always been
a very favourite argument. If Sanskrit scholars
differ from writers who have been twenty years iD
India, they are told that they have no right to speak ;
that there are MSS. in India which no one has ever
seen, and that there are native scholars in possession
of mysteries of which we poor professors have no
1 Nineteenth Century, May, 1893.

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM'. 97

conception. When asked for the production of those
ifeb., 01 for an introduction to these learned Mahatmas
tor India is not so difficult to reach in these days
as it was. in the days of Marco Polo-they are never
forthcoming Nay, the curious thing is that real
bansknt scholars who have spent their lives in India
and who know Sanskrit and Pali well, know abso-
lutely nothing of such MSS., nothing of such teachers

0 mysteiies. They are never known except to people
who are ignorant of Sanskrit or Pali. That seems
to be the first condition for being admitted to the
esoteric wisdom of India. The fact is, that there
is no longer any secret about Sanskrit literature, and

believe that we in England know as much about
it as most native scholars. Anyhow, such extracts
as M. Jacolliot produces from MSS. brought to him
are what every Sanskrit scholar would call at once
the horns of a hare, or the children of a barren woman.

1 hey have no existence ; they are pure inventions.

late years the treasures of Sanskrit MSS. still

thit Ti8hm \ndm haVe beCn S0 thorougMy ransacked
hat It has become quite useless to appeal to hidden

,SS: suPP°s«l to contain the ancient mysteries of the
religion of India. If a new text is discovered, there
is joy among all true Sanskrit scholars in India and
Europe. But the very idea that there are secret
and sacred MSS., or that there ever was any myZy
about the rekgwn of the Brahmans, is by this time
thoroughly exploded. Whatever there was of secret
religious doctrines in India consisted simply of doctrines
or the reception of which a certain previous trainino-
was required. Every member of the three upper caste!
had free access to the Vedas, and if the fourth clals

II.

last essays.

were not allowed to learn the Veda by heart, this
arose from a social far more than from a religious
prejudice. Again, it is quite true that the doctrines
of the Vedanta or the Upamshads were sometimes
called Raha&ya, that is, secret ; but this, too mean
no more than that teachers should not teach these
portions of the Veda except to persons of a certain age
and properly qualified for these higher studies. When
we hear Aristotle called the Smaller Mysteries and
Plato the Greater Mysteries, this does not mean a
their writings were kept secret. It only meant t
students must first have learnt a certain amount of
Greek and have qualified themselves for these more
advanced studies, Vet as students at Oxford advance
step by step from the smaller to the greater mysteues,
S is. from Smalls to Mods., and from Moc s fo
Greats. Greats may be great mysteries to a tie
man, but no one is excluded from participation in
them, if only he feels inclined to be initiated.

But if there was nothing mysterious about Biali-
manism, it is sometimes thought there mig e so“®
mysteries hidden in Buddhism. A schoiarhke study
of Buddhism came later in Europe than ^ scholailike
study of Brahmanism, and the amount of iu i \ <■

was written on Buddhism before the knowle ge o
Pili and Sanskrit enabled scholars to read the sacie
texts of the Buddhists for themselves is simply ap-
palling Buddhism was declared to be the original
Sion of mankind, more ancient than Brahmanism,
more ancient than the religion of the Teutonic races,
for who could doubt that Buddha was the same name
as that of Wodan ? Christianity itself was represented
as a mere plagiarism, its doctrines and legends weie

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTEEIC BUDDHISM. 99

supposed to have been borrowed from Buddhism and
we were told that the best we could do in order to
ecome real Christians was to become Buddhists,
eie exists at present a new sect of people who call
themselves Christum Buddhists, and they are said to

/LTT?UV!'; En«land and ™ France. The Journal

Z ,ft i °f~ V.oth °f MaF' i89°' sPea^ of 3°>°oo
BouAdHstes Chretiens at Paris. In India, more par-
ticularly ,n Ceylon, their number is supposed to be
much larger.

These are serious matters, and cannot be treated
merely as bad jokes or crazes. It is, indeed, very
important to observe that there is some foundation
for all these crazes, nay, that there is method in that
adness. There is, for instance, a tradition of a

Rtlglm it v V” T11 “ “ the 01d Testament ;
there is in tie Veda the story of a father willing, at

command of the god Varuna, to sacrifice his son.

or can it be denied that there is a very great likeness

between some moral doctrines and certain legends of

this ’ t tr trd Gh,rlstlanity- W« ought to rejoice at
this with aU our heart, but there is no necessity for

admitting anything like borrowing or stealing on one
si e or the other. A comparative study of the re-
ligions of antiquity has widened our horizon so much
and has so thoroughly established the universality of

the Tenacr°Unt f reIigi°US “'nth> that if we found
the ten Commandments in the sacred books of the

uddhists we should never think of theft and robbery

the D?1 iuherit““- We actually find

the Dasasila, the Ten Commandments, in Buddhism

Moses Vis d°ff ^ fal' ?* Ten Commaudments of
OSes. It is different when we come to facts and

H 2

LAST ESSAYS.

100

Wends. When it is pointed out that with regard to
these also there are great similarities between the 1 e
of Christ and the life of Buddha, I feel bound to
acknowledge that such similarities exist and tha ,
though many may be accounted for by the common
springs of human nature, there are a few left which
are startling, and which as yet remain a riddle.

It is owing, no doubt, to these coincidences that
a very remarkable person, whose name has lately
become familiar in England also, felt strongly
attracted to the study of Buddhism. I mean of course,
the late Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Esoteric
Buddhism. I have never met her, though she often
promised, or rather threatened, she would meet me
face to face at Oxford. She came to Oxford and
preached, I am told, for six hours before a number
of young men, but she did not inform me of her
presence. At first she treated me almost like a
Mahatma, but when there was no response I became,
like all Sanskrit scholars, a very untrustwoit y
authority. I have watched her career for many years
from her earliest appearance in America to her death
in London last year. She founded her Theosophic
Society at New York in 1875. The object of that
society was to experiment practically in the occu
powers of Nature, and to collect and disseminate
amono- Christians information about Oriental religious
philosophies. Nothing could be said against sue
objects, if only they were taken up honestly, an
with the necessary scholarly preparation Latei ,
however, new objects were added, namely to spread
among the benighted heathen such evidences as to the
practical results of Christianity as will at least give

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 101

both sides of the story to the communities among
which missionaries are at work. With this view the
society undertook to establish relations with associa-
tions and individuals throughout the East, to whom
it furnished authenticated reports of the ecclesiastical
crimes and misdemeanours, schisms, heresies, con-
troversies and litigations, doctrinal differences and
Biblical criticisms and revisions with which the press
of Chiistian Europe and America constantly teems.
^ ou may easily imagine what the outcome of such
a society would be, and how popular its Black Book
would become in India and elsewhere. However, I am
quite willing to give Madame Blavatsky credit for
good motrv es, at least at the beginning of her career.
Like many people in our time, she was, I believe, in
search of a religion which she could honestly embrace.
She was a clever, wild, and excitable girl, and anybody
who wishes to take a charitable view of her later
hysterical writings and performances should read the
biographical notices, lately published by her own
sister, in the Nouvelle Revue. It is the fault of those
who guide the religious education of young men and
women, and who simply require from them belief in
certain facts and dogmas, without ever explaining
what belief means, that so many, when they beo-in
to think about the different kinds of human know-
ledge, discover that they possess no religion at all.

Religion, in order to be real religion, a man’s own
leligion, must be searched for, must be discovered,
must be conquered. If it is simply inherited or
accepted as a matter of course, it often happens that
in latei years it falls away, and has either to be
reconquered or to be replaced by another religion.

102

LAST ESSAYS.

Madame Blavatsky was one of those who want
more than a merely traditional and formal faith, and,
in looking round, she thought she could find what
she wanted in India. We are ready to give Madame
Blavatsky full credit for deep religious sentiments,
more particularly for the same strong craving for
a spiritual union with the Divine which has inspired
so many of the most devout thinkers among Christians,
as well as among so-called heathen. Nowhere has
that craving found fuller expression than among the
philosophers of India, particularly among the Vedanta
philosophers. Like Schopenhauer, she seems to have
discovered through the dark mists of imperfect transla-
tions some of the brilliant rays of truth which issue
from the Upanishads and the ancient Vedanta philo-
sophy of India. .

To India, therefore, she went with some friends,
but, unfortunately, with no knowledge of the lan-
guage, and with very little knowledge of what she
might expect to find there, and where she ought to
look for native teachers who should initiate her in
the mysteries of the sacred lore of the countiy. That
such lore and such mysteries existed she never doubted ;
and she thought that she had found at last what she
wanted in Dayananda Sarasvati, the founder of the
Arya-Samaj. His was, no doubt, a remarkable and
powerful mind, but he did not understand English ;
nor did Madame Blavatsky understand either the
modern or the ancient languages of the country. Still
there sprang up between the two a mutual though
mute admiration, and a number of followers soon
gathered round this interesting couple. However, this
mute admiration did not last long, and when the two

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 103

began to understand each other better they soon dis-
covered that they could not act together. I am afraid
it can no longer be doubted that Dayananda Sarasvati
was as deficient in moral straightforwardness as his
American pupil. Hence they were both disappointed
in each other, and Madame Blavatsky now determined
to found her own religious sect — in fact, to found
a new religion, based chiefly on the old religions of
India.

Unfortunately, she took it into her head that it was
incumbent on every founder of a religion to perform
miracles, and here it can no longer be denied that she
often resorted to the most barefaced tricks and im-
positions in order to gain adherents in India. In this
she succeeded more than she herself could have hoped
for. The natives felt flattered by being told that they
were the depositaries of ancient wisdom, far more
valuable than anything that European philosophy or
the Christian religion had ever supplied. The natives
are not often flattered in that way, and they naturally
swallowed the bait. Others were taken aback by the
assurance with which this new prophetess spoke of
her intercourse with unseen spirits, of letters flying-
through the air from Tibet to Bombay, of showers of
flowers falling from the ceiling of a dining-room, of
saucers disappearing from a tea-tray and being found
in a garden, and of voices and noises proceeding from
spirits through a mysterious cabinet. You may ask
how educated people could have been deceived by
such ordinary jugglery ; but with some people the
power of believing seems to grow with the absurdity
of what is to be believed. When I expressed my
regret to one of her greatest admirers that Madame

104

LAST ESSAYS.

Blavatsky should have lowered herself by these vulgar
exhibitions, I was told, with an almost startling
frankness, that no religion could be founded without
miracles, and that a religion, if it was to grow, must
he manured. These are the ipsissima verba of one
who knew Madame Blavatsky better than anybody
else ; and after that it was useless for us to discuss
this subject any further.

But, as I said before, I am quite willing to allow that
Madame Blavatsky started with good intentions, that
she saw and was dazzled by a glimmering of truth in
various religions of the world, that she believed in the
possibility of a mystic union of the soul with God, and
that she was most anxious to discover in a large number
of books traces of that theosophic intuition which re-
unites human nature with the Divine. Unfortunately,
she was without the tools to dig for those treasures in
the ancient literature of the world, and her mistakes
in quoting from Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin would be
amusing if they did not appeal to our sympathy
rather for a woman who thought that she could fly
though she had no wings, not even those of Icarus.

Her book, called Isis Unveiled , in two volumes of
more than 600 pages each, bristling with notes and
references to every kind of authority, both wise
and foolish, shows an immense amount of drudgery
and misdirected ingenuity. To quote her blunders
would be endless. Of what character they are will
be seen when I quote what she says about the serpent
being the good or the evil spirit b ‘In this case,’ she
writes, ‘the serpent is the Ayathodaimon, the good
spirit; in its opposite aspect it is the Kahothodai-

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 105

mon, the bad one.’ I believe that this mistake, when
I pointed it out to an undergraduate friend of mine
at Oxford, saved him from enrolling himself as an
Esoteric Buddhist. Again, speaking as if she knew
the whole of Vedic literature, she says1: ‘Certainly,
nowhere in the Veda can be found the coarseness and
downright immorality of language that Hebraists now
discover throughout the Mosaic Bible.’

It is very difficult, when you deal with ancient
races who go about almost naked, to decide what is
immodest and what is not. But, speaking not alto-
gether without book, I may say that the Veda does
contain certain passages which would not bear transla-
tion into English.

Again, what shall we say to the argument that the
Vedas must have been composed before the Deluge,
because the Deluge is not mentioned in them2? Now,
first of all, the Deluge is mentioned in the Brahmawa
ot the Yai/ur-veda, and Madame Blavatsky knows it ;
and secondly, are we really to suppose that every
book which does not mention the Deluge was written
before the Deluge ? What an enormous library of
antediluvian books we should possess ! M. Jacolliot,
as usual, outbids Madame Blavatsky. He writes :

‘ The Vedas and Manu, those monuments of old Asiatic thought
existed far earlier than the diluvian period ; this is an incontro-
vertible fact, having all the value of an historical truth, for, besides
the tradition which shows Vishnu himself as saving the Vedas from
the Deluge a tradition which, notwithstanding its legendary form
must certainly rest upon a real fact -it has been remarked that
neither of these sacred books mentions the cataclysm, while the
PurAnas and the Mahabharata describe it with the minutest detail
which is a proof of the priority of the former. The Vedas certainly

1 ii. p. So.

2 ii. p. 727.

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would never have failed to contain a few hymns on the terrible
disaster which, of all other natural manifestations, must have
struck the imagination of the people who witnessed it.’

Such hymns could only have been written by Noah
or by Manu, and we possess, unfortunately, no poetic
relics of either of these poets, not even in the Yeda.

I must quote no more, nor is more evidence wanted,
to show that Madame Blavatsky and her immediate
followers were simply without bricks and mortar
when they endeavoured to erect the lofty structure
which they had conceived in their minds. I give full
credit to her good intentions, at least at first. I readily
acknowledge her indefatigable industry. She began
life as an enthusiast ; but enthusiasts, as Goethe says,
after they have come to know the world, and have
been deceived by the world, are apt to become
deceivers themselves.

The number of her followers, however, has become
so large in India, and particularly in Ceylon, that the
movement started by her can no longer be ignored.
There are Esoteric Buddhists in England also, in
America, and in France ; but I doubt whether in these
countries they can do much harm. To her followers
Madame Blavatsky is a kind of inspired prophetess.
To me it seems that she began life as an enthusiast,
though not without a premature acquaintance with
the darker sides of life, nor without a feminine weak-
ness for notoriety. After a time, however, she ceased
to be truthful both to herself and to others. But
although her work took a wrong direction, I do not
wish to deny that here and there she caught a glimpse
of those wonderful philosophical intuitions which are
treasured up in the sacred books of the East. Un-

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 107

fortunately she had fallen an easy prey to some
persons whom she consulted, whoever they were,
whether Mahatmas from Tibet, or Panditammanyas
in Calcutta, Bombay, or Madras. Disappointed in
Dayananda Sarasvati and his often absurd interpreta-
tions of the Veda, she turned to Buddhism, though
again without an idea how or where to study that
religion.

No one can study Buddhism unless he learns Sanskrit
and Pali, so as to be able to read the canonical books,
and at all events to spell the names correctly. Madame
Blavatsky couid do neither, though she was quite clever
enough, if she had chosen, to have learnt Sanskrit or
Pali. But even her informants must have been almost
entirely ignorant of these languages, or they must
have practised on her credulity in a most shameless
manner. W hether she herself suspected this or not,
she certainly showed great shrewdness in withdraw-
ing herself and her description of Esoteric Buddhism
from all possible control and contradiction. Her
Buddhism, she declared, was not the Buddhism which
ordinary scholars might study in the canonical books ;
hers was Esoteric Buddhism. ‘ It is not in the dead
letter of Buddhistical sacred literature/ she says, ‘ that
scholars may hope to find the true solution of the meta-
physical subtleties of Buddhism. The latter weary the
power of thought by the inconceivable profundity of
its ratiocination : and the student is never farther
from truth than when he believes himself nearest its
discovery1. We are told, also2, that there was a pre-
historic Buddhism which merged later into Brahman-
ism, and that this was the religion preached by Jesus

1 i. p. 289. 2 ii. p. 123.

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LAST ESSAYS.

and the early Apostles. After we have been told that
there was a Buddhism older than the Vedas — and
we might say with the same right that there was
a Christianity older than Moses — we are told next
ofapre-Vedic Brahmanism, and, to make all contro-
versy impossible, Madame Blavatsky tells us that
‘ when she uses the term Buddhism she does not mean
to imply by it either the exoteric Buddhism instituted
by the followers of Gautama Buddha, nor the modern
Buddhistic religion, but the secret philosophy of
$akyamuni, which, in its essence, is identical with
the ancient wisdom religion of the sanctuary, the pre-
Vedic Brahmanism.’ ! Gautama,’ we are assured, ‘ had
a doctrine for his “ elect,” and another for the outside
masses.’ Then she adds apologetically, ‘ If both
Buddha and Christ, aware of the great danger of
furnishing an uncultivated populace with the double-
edged weapon of knowledge which gives power, left
the innermost corner of the sanctuary in the pro-
foundest shade, who that is acquainted with human
nature can blame them for it ? ’ Then why did she,
being evidently so well acquainted with human nature,
venture to divulge these dangerous esoteric doctrines ?
Though I must say what she does divulge seems very
harmless.

With such precautions Madame Blavatsky’s Esoteric
Buddhism was safe against all cavil and all criticism.
As no one could control the statements of Ctesias as
to a race of people who used their ears as sheets to
sleep in, no one could control the statements of the
Mahatmas from Tibet as to a Buddhism for Madame
Blavatsky to dream in. I do not say that no Mahatmas
exist in India or in Tibet. I simply say that modern

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 109

India is the worst country for studying Buddhism.
India is, no doubt, the birthplace of Buddha and of
Buddhism. But Buddhism, as a popular religion, has
vanished from India, so that the religious census of
the country knows hardly of any Buddhists, except
in Ceylon and in some districts bordering on Tibet or
Burmah. As no Buddhist teachers could be found in
Bombay or Calcutta, some imaginary beings had to
be created by Madame Blavatsky and located safely
in Tibet, as yet the most inaccessible country in the
world. Madame Blavatsky’s powers of creation were
very great, whether she wished to have intercourse
with Mahatmas, astral bodies, or ghosts of any kind.
Heie is a list of the ghosts for whose real existence
she vouches : ‘ peris, devs, djins, sylvans, satyrs, fauns,
elves, dwarfs, trolls, norns, nisses, kobolds, brownies,
necks, stromkarls, undines, nixies, salamanders, goblins,
banshees, kelpies, pixies, moss people, good people,
good neighbours, wild women, men of peace, white
ladies, and many more.’ Shall we, then, concede, she
asks, that all who have seen these creatures were
hallucinated ? It is difficult to answer such a question
without seeming rude. I should certainly say they
weie hallucinated, and that they were using words
of which they knew neither the meaning nor, what
is even better, the etymology. So long as Madame
Blavatsky placed her Mahatmas beyond the Himalayas
both she and her witnesses were quite safe from any
detectives or cross-examining lawyers. I saw, how-
evei, in the papers not long ago that even the believers
in Madame Blavatsky begin to be sceptical about these
trans-Himalayan Mahatmas. At the annual Theo-
sophical Convention, held at Chicago in 1892, a lady

110

LAST ESSAYS.

asked why outsiders were always told that the
Mahatma sages dwelt beyond the Himalayan moun-
tains. Mr. Judge, who is now the head of the
American Theosophists, replied that it was for seclu-
sion. ‘ If they were anywhere in the United States,’
he said, ‘ they would be pestered and interviewed by
reporters.’ This admitted of no reply, particularly in
America.

We, the pretended authorities of the West, are told
to go to the Brahmans and Lamaists of the Far Orient,
and respectfully ask them to impart to us the alphabet
of true science. But she gives us no addresses, no
letters of introduction to her Tibetan friends, though
in another place she tells us

< that travellers have met these adepts on the shores of the sacred
Ganges, brushed against them in the silent ruins of Thebes, and
in the mysterious deserted chambers of Luxor. Within the halls
upon whose blue and golden vaults the weird signs attract attention,
but whose secret meaning is never penetrated by the idle gazers,
they have been seen, but seldom recognized. Historical memoirs
have recorded their presence in the brilliantly illuminated salons
of European aristocracy. They have been encountered again on
the arid and desolate plains of the Great Sahara, as in the caves
of Elephanta. They may be found everywhere, but make them-
selves known only to those who have devoted their lives to unselfish
study, and are not likely to turn back ’ (p. 17).

We see that Madame Blavatsky might have achieved
some success if she had been satisfied to follow in
the footsteps of Eider Haggard, Sinnet, or Marion
Crawford ; but her ambition was to found a religion,
not to make money by writing new Arabian Nights.

But when we come to examine what these deposi-
taries of primaeval wisdom, the Mahatmas of Tibet and
of the sacred Ganges, are supposed to have taught her
we find no mysteries, nothing very new, nothing very

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. Ill

old, but simply a medley of well-known though
generally misunderstood Brahmanic or Buddhistic
doctrines. There is nothing that cannot be traced
back to generally accessible Brahmanic or Buddhistic
sources, only everything is muddled or misunderstood.
It I were asked what Madame Blavatsky’s Esoteric
Buddhism really is. I should say it was Buddhism mis-
understood, distorted, caricatured. There is nothing-
in it beyond what was known already, chiefly from
books that are now antiquated. The most ordinary
terms are misspelt and misinterpreted. Mahdtma,
for instance, is a well-known Sanskrit name applied
to men who have retired from the world, who, by
means of a long ascetic discipline, have subdued the
passions of the flesh and gained a reputation for
sanctity and knowledge. That these men are able
to perform most startling feats and to suffer the most
terrible tortures is perfectly true. Some of them,
though not many, are distinguished as scholars also ;

so much so that Mahatma — literally ‘great-souled ’

has become an honorary title. I have myself had the
honour of being addressed by that name in many
letters written in Sanskrit, and sent to me — not,
indeed, through the air, but through the regular post-
office— from Benares to Oxford. That some of these
so-called Mahatmas are impostors is but too well
known to all who have lived in India. I am quite
ready, therefore, to believe that Madame Blavatsky
and her friends were taken in by persons who pre-
tended to be Mahatmas, though it has never been
explained in what language even they could have
communicated their Esoteric Buddhism to their Euro-
pean pupil. Madame Blavatsky herself was, according

112

LAST ESSAYS.

to her own showing, quite unable to gauge then-
knowledge or to test their honesty, and she naturally
shared the fate of Ctesias, of Lieutenant Wdford, and

of M. Jacolliot. . .

That there are men in India, knowing a certain
amount of Sanskrit and a little English, who will say
yes to everything you ask them, I know from sad
experience ; and it would be very unfair to say that
such weaklings exist in India only. If people wish
to he deceived, there are always those who are rear y
to deceive them. This, I think, is the most charitable
interpretation which we can put on the beginnings so
that extraordinary movement which is known y >e
name of Esoteric Buddhism, nay, which, on account
of the similarities which exist between Buddhism
and Christianity, claims in some places the name ot
Christian Buddhism. On this so-called Christian
Buddhism, and on the real similarities between
Buddhism and Christianity, I may have something
to say at another time. At present I only wish to
show that if there is any religion entirely free from
esoteric doctrines it is Buddhism. There never was
any such thing as mystery in Buddhism. Altogether,
it seems to me that mystery is much more of a modern
than of an ancient invention. There are no rea
mysteries even in Brahmanism, for we can hardly
apply that name to doctrines which were not com-
municated to everybody, hut only to people who had
passed through a certain preparatory discipline. 1 he
whole life of a Brahman in ancient India was under
a certain control. It was divided into four stages :
the school, the household, the forest, and the solitude.
Up to the age of twenty-seven a young man was

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 113

supposed to be a student in the house of a Guru.
After that he had to marry and found a household,
and perform all the religious acts which were pre-
scribed by the "V edas ; then, when he had seen his
childiens children, he was expected to retire from his
house, and live, either alone or with his wife, in the
forest, released from social and religious duties — nay,
allowed to enjoy the greatest freedom of philosophic
speculation.

Now it is quite true that the Aranyakas, the
Foiest- books, and the Upanishads in which these
philosophical speculations are contained were some-
times called Rahasya — that is, secret. They were
not to be communicated to young people, nor to the
married householder— very naturally, for they taught
that the gods whom the young men and the married
householders had believed in were not gods at all,
but simply different names of the Unknown behind
Is ature, and that of the Great Spirit or Brahma nothing
could be predicated except sat, that he was ; jfeit, that
he perceived and thought ; and ananda, that he was
blessed— hence he was often called Sa&fcid&nanda.
Sacrifices, and all outward worship, which had before
been represented as necessary for man’s salvation,
were now represented as not only useless, but as
actually hurtful, if performed with any selfish view
to rewards in another life. Whereas the whole of
the Veda had formerly been represented as super-
human, inspired, and infallible, one part of it, the
Karmakanda, the practical part, consisting of the
hymns and the Br&hmanas, the liturgical books, was
now put aside, and there remained only the #/7ana-
kaiicZa, the philosophical part, that is, whatever

II. !

114

LAST ESSAYS.

treated of Brahman and its relation to the individual
soul. This only, and more particularly the Upani-
shads, continued to be considered as really necessary
for salvation. For salvation was by knowledge only,
or, as we should say, by faith, and not by wor s.

The highest object of this contemplative life in the
forest was the finding of one’s own soul, the saving
of one’s soul alive, the discovery of the Atman t
self, and not the mere Ego. This was no easy ma .
Even in those early days the existence of a soul had
been denied. Some held that body and soul were the
same; others, that the soul was i the breath ; others
acain, that it was the Ego or the mind with all its
experiences, with its perceptions and conceptions and
aUthe rest. The hermits in the forest, after they had
subdued all the passions of the body and wrenched
themselves free from all its fetters, had now to lea n
that the soul was something that according o 1
nature could never be seen, or heard or perceived hke
the objective world which was visible and perishable
because, if perceived, it would at once
thine objective, something totally different from the
perceiving subject. It would no longer be he soul
The unseen and unperceivable something which w as
formerly called the soul was now called the self,
Atman. Nothing could be predicated of it excep
that it was, that it perceived and thought, and that
must be blessed. When they had once discovered
that the Atman, the self within us, shared its only
possible predicates with the Brahman, the mvisib e
self behind nature and behind the so-called gods of
nature, the next step was easy enough— namely, t
discovery of the original identity of the self and of

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 115

Brahman, the eternal oneness of man and God, the
substantial identity of human and divine nature. To
restore that identity by removing the darkness of
ignorance by which it had been clouded— to become
as we should say, one with God and He with us, or
lathei to lose oui self, and find our self again in
God— that was henceforth the highest goal of the
remaining years of the old man’s life in the forest.

as it not natural that these doctrines, which were
contained in the Upanishads, and which were after-
wards minutely elaborated in the Vedanta-sfitras,
should have been kept secret from the young and
from those who had still to perform the practical
duties of life? Nor was there much difficulty in
keeping them secret. For as in ancient India there
were no books, and as all teaching was oral, a teacher
had to be found to communicate the doctrines of the
panishads, and it was almost self-interest, if no
higher motive, that would have kept the teachers
from communicating these so-called mysteries. Still
whoever was fit to receive them had a right to become
once more a pupil in his old age, and in that sense
the Upanishads were no more mysteries than any
other book which it is not good for young people to
read. Nevertheless, what happened to all mysteries
happened to the Upanishads also. Not that there
was any wish on the part of the young to share in
the ascetic life of their elders, or any idle curiosity
™ er what enabled these solitary sages to preserve
such seiemty Of mind, such freedom from all desires,
and such perfect happiness during the last period of
eii life, spent in the peaceful shade of the forest
But the time came when those who had passed

I 2

116

last essays.

through all the trials and miseries of life, and who
after a stormy voyage had found a refuge m t e
harbour of true philosophy, whose anchors were no
longer dragging, but resting firmly on the rock of
truth — the time came when these men themselves,
conscious of the bliss which they enjoyed, said to
themselves, ‘ What is the use of this dreary waiting
of all the toil of youth, of all the struggle of life of all
the trouble of sacrifices, of all the terrors of religion,
when there is this true knowledge which changes us
in the twinkling of an eye, discloses to us our rea
nature, our real home, our real God ? ’ This thought
I do not mean the belief in a union between the human
and the divine, but this conviction that the preparatory
stages of student life and married life were useless,
and that it was better at once to face the tru
has always seemed to me the true starting-point o
Buddhism as an historical religion. Buddhism as
come to mean so many things that I always feel
a kind of shiver when people speak of Buddhism as
teaching this or that. Buddhism had, no doubt an
historical origin in the fifth century B.C and here
were many causes which led to its rapid growth at
that time. But from a social point of view, the first
and critical step consisted in Buddhas opening e
doors of a forest life to all who wished to enter,
whatever their age, whatever their caste That life
in the forest, however, is not meant to be what it
used to be in former times, a real retirement from the
village, and a retreat into the solitude of the forest,
but simply a retirement from the cares of the world
a life with the brotherhood, and a performance o
duties imposed on the brotherhood by the founder o

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 117

the Buddhist order, the young prince of Kapilavastu,
called Gautama, Buddha, iS'akyamuni, Siddhartha,
Mahasiamana, and many other names. This leaving
of the world before a man had performed the duties
of a student and of a father of a family was the great
offence of Buddhism in the eyes of the Brahmans, for
it was that which deprived the Brahmans of their
exclusive social position as teachers, as priests, as
guides and counsellors. In this sense Buddha may
be said to have been a heretic, and to have rejected
the system of caste, the authority of the Veda, and
the whole educational and sacrificial system as based
on the Veda. He could never be forgiven for having-
arrogated to himself the right of teaching, which was
the exclusive right of a Brahman born. The critical
e\ent in the life of Buddha himself was really his
leaving father, mother, wife, and children behind,
and going alone into the forest. Thus he save of
himself: —

‘And I, O disciples, still young, strong, my hair dark, in my
■happy youth, in the flower of my manhood, against the will of
my parents who were crying and grieving for me, went forth, my
hair cut and my beard shaved, dressed in the yellow garb (the
garb of the Buddhist mendicant). I went from my home into
homelessness.’

But though this was heresy and rebellion in the
eyes of the Brahmans, we must not imagine that
Buddhism was from the first, as it has often been
supposed to be, a new religion, independent of, nay,
in open opposition to, Brahmanism. There has never
been in the whole history of the world what could be
called an entirely new religiou. Every religion we
know presupposes another religion, as every language
presupposes an antecedent language. Nay, it seems

118

LAST ESSAYS.

almost impossible to conceive the possibility of
an entirely new religion quite as much as of an
entirely new language. Mohammedanism presupposes
Christianity, Judaism, and a popular faith prevailing
among the Arab tribes. Christianity presupposes
Judaism and Greek philosophy ; Judaism presupposes
an earlier and more widely spread Semitic faith, traces
of which appear in the inscriptions of Babylon and
Nineveh. Beyond the religion of the Mesopotamian
kingdoms there seems to have been an Accadian
religion, and beyond that our knowledge comes to an
end? The ancient religion of Zoroaster, again, pre-
supposes the Yedic religion, while the Yedic leligion
points to a more ancient Aryan background. What
lies beyond that common Aryan religion is again
beyond the reach of history, nay, even of conjecture.
But it may certainly be stated that, as no human race
has ever been discovered without any language at all,
neither do we know of any human tribe without
something like a religion, some manifestation of a
perception of a Beyond, or that sense of the Infinite
beneath the Finite, which is the true fountain head of
all religion.

Much as Buddhism in its later development differs
from Brahmanism, Buddha’s teaching would be quite
inconceivable without the previous growth of Biah-
manism. This is too often ignored, and many words
and concepts are treated as peculiar to Buddhism
which were perfectly familiar to the Brahmans. In
many cases, it is true, Buddha gave a new meaning
to them, but he borrowed the substance from those
who had been the teachers of his youth. It is generally
imagined, for instance, that Nirvana, about which so

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 119

much has been written, was a term coined by Buddha.
But Nirvana occurs in the Bhagavad-gita, and in
some of the Upanishads. It meant originally no more
than the blowing out or the expiring of all passion,
the calm after the storm, the final emancipation and
eternal bliss, reunion with the Supreme Spirit (Brahma-
nirva/ua), till in some of the Buddhist schools, though
by no means in all, it was made to signify complete
extinction or annihilation. Whatever Nirvana may
have come to mean in the end, there can be no doubt
as to what it meant in the beginning — the extinction
of the fire of the passions. But that beginning lies
outside the limits of Buddhism ; it is still within the
old domain of Brahmanism.

The name, again, by which Buddha and his followers
called themselves, and by which they first became

known to Greeks and other nations — Samara is

likewise of Brahman ic growth. It is the Sanskrit
Sramana, an ascetic or mendicant, derived from the
word Siam, to toil, to weary. Buddha was often
called ‘ Samano Gotamo,’ the ascetic Gotamo, though
it was he who put down the extreme tortures which
Brahmanic ascetics inflicted on themselves during the
third stage of their lives, the retreat to the forest.
With the Buddhists everybody who has left house
home, family, to whatever caste he may have belonged
before, may become a Samara, but the word soon
assumed the more general sense of a saint, so that
a man may be called a Samana even though he has
not assumed the humble dress of an ascetic. Thus we
read in the Dhammapada, 142 —

‘He who, though dressed in fine apparel, exercises tranquillity
is quiet, subdued, restrained .and chaste, and has ceased to find

120

LAST ESSAYS.

fault with other beings — he is indeed a Brahmana, a Sramawa
(Samawa), a Bhikshu.’

Here we see at the same time what a high idea
Buddha, who used to be represented as the enemy of
the Brahmans and of Brahmanism, assigns to the name
of Brahmana, and how entirely he remains the child
of his time. With him a Brahman is a saint, and
a Bhikshu a mendicant not far removed from a saint.

The Greeks changed Samaiia into 2a/xarcuoi and
sometimes into 2 e\xvoL. Shavian, however, the Tun-
gusian name for a priestly sorcerer *, is not derived
from Samaria, but is a word of Tungusian origin.

Many more words might be mentioned which to us
seem Buddhistic, but which are really of Brahmanic
workmanship. There are, in fact, few Buddhistic
words and few Buddhistic concepts which, if we treat
them historically, do not disclose their Brahmanic
antecedents, more or less modified in the later schools
of the Buddhists. Scholars begin to see that, as we
cannot fully appreciate Pali, the sacred language of
Buddhism, without knowing Sanskrit, we cannot
fully understand the teaching of Buddha without
knowing the antecedent periods of Brahmanic
thought.

Even when Buddha, the young prince of Kapilavastu,
determined to leave his family, wife, son, father, and
friends, and to embrace the state of homelessness, he
followed the example set to him by the Brahmanic
,S ram anas, and submitted to all the cruel tortures to
which the dwellers in the forest thought it right
to subject themselves. It took him several years
before he perceived their utter uselessness, nay, their
1 Koppan, Die Religion des Buddha, i. p. 330, n.

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTEKIC BUDDHISM. 121

mischievous influence. He then adopted a more
rational life, what he called a via media , equally
removed from extreme asceticism and from self-
indulgence. In all this there was no secret, nothing
esoteric, no mystery. On the contrary, whatever there
may have been of mystery among the Brahmanic
dwellers in the forest was now proclaimed to all the
world by the monks who formed the real Buddhistic
brotherhood in the midst of a very independent laity.
If there is any religion thoroughly popular, thoroughly
unreserved, without admitting any priestly privileges,
it was the original religion of Buddha. Brahmanism
used Sanskrit as its sacred language ; Buddha adopted
the vulgar dialects spoken by the people, so that all
might be able to follow his teaching.

I cannot give a better explanation of the change of
Brahmanism into Buddhism than by stating that
Buddhism was the highest Brahmanism popularized,
everything esoteric being abolished, the priesthood
replaced by monks, and these monks being in their
true character the successors and representatives of
the enlightened dwellers in the forest of former ages.
The Buddhist community consisted of monks (not
priests) and laymen. The monks were what the
ascetics (/Sframa??as) had been; only they were no
longer obliged to pass through the previous stages of
Brahma/carin (religious student) and of Grihastha
(householder), though, like Buddha himself, they
might have been married and fathers of a family if
only after a time they were willing to surrender all
they used to call their own. As to keeping any of
these doctrines secret, nothing could have been more
opposed to the spirit of their founder. Whatever of

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LAST ESSAYS.

esoteric teaching there may have been in other religions,
there was none in the religion of Buddha. Whatever
was esoteric or secret was ipso facto not Buddha’s
teaching ; whatever was Buddha’s teaching was ipso
facto not esoteric. Buddha himself, though he knows
well that there is, and that in every honest religion
there always must he, a distinction between the few
and the many, would approve of no barriers between
them except those which they made for themselves.
He speaks with open scorn of keeping any portion
of the truth secret. Thus he says in one of his short
sermons 1 —

‘ 0 disciples, there are three to whom secrecy belongs and not
openness. Who are they ? Secrecy belongs to women, not open-
ness ; secrecy belongs to priestly wisdom, not openness ; secrecy
belongs to false doctrine, not openness. To these three belongs
secrecy, not openness.

But there are three things that shine before all the world, and
not in secret. Which are they ? The disk of the moon, 0 disciples,
shines before all the world, and not in secret ; the disk of the sun
shines before all the world, and not in secret ; the doctrines and
rules proclaimed by the perfect Buddha shine before all the world,
not in secret. These three things shine before all the world, and
not in secret.’

And this is by no means a solitary occasion on
which Buddha condemns anything like mystery in
religion, or what is meant by Esoteric Buddhism.
There is a memorable dialogue between him and his
disciple Ananda shortly before his death, in which he
condemns not only mystery in religion, but any appeal
to external authority, any obedience to anything but
the voice within. We read in the Mcihdparinibbdna
Sutta (p. 35) : —

‘ 28. Now when the Blessed One had thus entered upon the rainy
season (when the monks go into retreat) there fell upon him a dire

1 Anguttara Nikaya, pp. 1, 3, 129.

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 123

sickness, and sharp pains came upon him, even unto death. But
the Blessed One, mindful and self-possessed, bore them without
complaint.

29. Then this thought occurred to the Blessed One : It would
not be right for me to pass away from existence without addressing
the disciples, without taking leave of the order. Let me now, by
a stiong effort of the will, bend this sickness down again, and keep
my hold on life till the allotted time be come.

30. And the Blessed One, by a strong effort of the will, bent
that sickness down again, and kept his hold on life till the time
he fixed upon should come. And the sickness abated upon him.

31. how ' ery soon after, the Blessed One began to recover.
When he had quite got rid of the sickness, he went out from the
monastery, and sat down behind the monastery on a seat spread
out there. And the venerable Ananda went to the place where
the Blessed One was and saluted him, and took a seat respectfully
on one side, and addressed the Blessed One and said : I have
beheld, Lord, how the Blessed One was in health, and I have beheld
how the Blessed One had to suffer. And though at the sight of the
sickness of the Blessed One my body became weak as a creeper,
and the horizon became dim to me, and my faculties were no
longei clear, yet notwithstanding I took some little comfort from
the thought that the Blessed One would not pass away from
existence until at least he had left instructions as touching the
order.

32. What then, Ananda (he replied)? Does the order expect that
of me ? I have preached the Truth without making any distinction
between exoteric and esoteric doctrine : for in respect of the truths.
Ananda, the Tathagata has no such thing as the closed fist of
a teacher, who keeps some things back.’

Then he inveighs against the idea that after his death
his disciples should be guided by anything but the
Spirit of Truth within them.

‘ Surely, Ananda (he says), should there be any one who harbours
the thought, It is I who will lead the brotherhood, or, The order is
dependent upon me, it is he who should lay down instructions in
any matter concerning the order. Now the Tathagata, 0 Ananda
thinks not that he should lead the brotherhood, or that the order is
dependent upon him. Why then should he leave instructions in
any matter concerning the order? I too, 0 Ananda. am now grown
old and full of years ; my journey is drawing to its close, I have
reached my sum of days, I am turning eighty years of age, and just

124

LAST ESSAYS.

as a worn-out cart, Ananda, can only with much additional care be
made to move along, so, methinks, the body of the Tathagata can
only be kept going with much additional care. . . .

33. Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye
a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge.
Hold feat as a refuge to the Truth. Look not for refuge to any one
besides yourselves. . . ^

33. And whosoever, Ananda, either now or after I am dead, shall
be a lamp unto themselves, and a refuge unto themselves, shall
betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the
Truth as their lamp, and holding fast as their refuge to the Truth,
shall not look for refuge to any one besides themselves— it is they,
0 Ananda, among my Bhikkhus, who shall reach the very highest
height, provided they are willing to learn.’

Can. anything be more outspoken, more determined 1
No one is to be entrusted with private or secret
instruction as to the future rule of the Church, no one
is to claim any exceptional authority. But the highest
seat of authority is always to be with the man himself
and with the voice of truth within.

And this is the religion, of all others, chosen by
Madame Blavatsky as an esoteric religion. Buddha,
who would have no secrets, whether for the laity
or for his own beloved disciples, is represented as
withholding the double-edged weapon of knowledge
from the uncultivated populace and keeping the
innermost corner of the sanctuary in the profoundest
shade. No traveller’s tale was ever more audacious
and more incongruous than this misrepresentation
of the character of Buddha and his doctrine.

I repeat that I do not think that Madame Blavatsky
invented Esoteric Buddhism. I am quite willing to
believe that, as in her first intercourse with Brah-
manism in the person of Saty ananda Saras vati, she
was, when face to face with Buddhist Mahatmas, very
much like Goethe’s fisherman who was drawn into

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 125

the waves by a mermaid : ‘ Halb zog sie ihn, halb
sank er hin!’ — half she sank, half she was drawn.
She was deceived b}r persons who saw that she almost
wished to be deceived, and that she had no means
whatever of defending herself against deceit. I go
even further, and admit that even by giving a dis-
torted picture of Buddhism she has done some good
by attracting general attention to a religion which,
with all its shortcomings, deserves our highest regard
and our most careful study. If her followers could
only give up the idea that no religion can be founded
without miracles, if they would only read how Buddha
himself denounces all miracles except one, they would
learn that what they call miracles has been the bane
of all honest religions. It is quite true that Buddha 1
and his contemporaries, whether his followers or
opponents, speak of certain miracles as if they had
seen them performed every day. As miracles of magic
power Buddha mentions the fact that one man may
appear as many, or many as one ; that a man may
become invisible, may pass through a wall as if
through air, may rise through the air as if in water,
may walk on water as if on the earth, and may be
lifted up through the air like a bird, so that he
reaches the moon and the sun, nay, even the world
of Brahman. All these miracles are recognized by
Buddha as perfectly possible, but he denies that they
have anything to do with the truth of his teaching,
that they can carry any conviction, or can convert
a man who is unbelieving and unloving into a man
who believes and loves. Buddha freely admits that
some men have the power of reading the thoughts
1 Digha h'ikdya, i. i, ii. Neumann, p.62.

126

LAST ESSAYS.

of other people, and of remembering their own former
existences, but again he denies that such things can
carry conviction. The greatest miracle with Buddha
is teaching, by which an unbeliever is really converted
into a believer, an unloving into a loving man. And
when his own disciples come to him asking to be
allowed to perform the ordinary magic miracles, he
forbids them to do so, but allows them to perform
one miracle only, which everybody could, but nobody
does, perform, namely, to confess our sins, and again
not in secret, not in a confessional, but publicly and
before the whole congregation.

If Madame Blavatsky would have tried to perform
that one true Buddhistic miracle, if she had tried to
confess openly her small faults and indiscietions,
instead of attempting thought-reading, levitation, or
sending letters through the air from Tibet to Calcutta,
and from Calcutta to London, or if those who willingly
or unwillingly allowed themselves to be deceived by
her would openly renounce all these childish tiicks
and absurdities, they might still do much good, and
really manure a vast neglected field for a new and rich
harvest. I must say that one of Madame Bla\atsky s
greatest admirers, Colonel Olcott, has of late yeai s
entered on a much more healthy sphere of activity,
one in which he and his friends may do some real
good. He has encouraged and helped the publication
of authentic texts of the old Brahmanic and Buddhist
religions. He has tried to inspire both Brahmans and
Buddhists with respect for their old religions, and has
helped them to discover in their sacred books some
rays of truth to guide them through the dark shadows
of life. He has shown them how, in spite of many

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM". 127

differences, their various sects share much in common,
and how they should surrender what is not essential
and keep what is essential as the true bond of a wide
religious brotherhood b In all this he has my fullest
sympathy. It is because I love Buddha and admire
Buddhist morality that I cannot remain silent when
I see his noble figure lowered to the level of religious
charlatans, or his teaching misrepresented as esoteric
twaddle. I do not mean to say that Buddhism has
never been corrupted and vulgarized when it became
the religion of barbarous or semi-barbarous people
in Tibet, China, and Mongolia; nor should I wish
to deny that it has in some places been represented
by knaves and impostors as something mysterious,
esoteric, impenetrable, and unintelligible. It is true,
also, that, particularly in the so-called Mahayana
Buddhism, there are certain treatises which are called
secret— for instance, the Tathdgataguhyalca, the hidden
doctrines of the Tathagatas or the Buddhas ; but they
are secret, not as being withheld from anybody, but
simply as containing more difficult and recondite
doctrines. Even the Secret of Hegel is no longer
a mystery, as Mr. Hutchinson Sterling has shown,
though it requires a certain amount of preparation.’
If Madame Blavatsky had appealed to any one of the
canonical books of the Mahayana Buddhists, we should
have known what she meant by Esoteric Buddhism.
As it is, it is impossible to discuss any one of the
doctrines which she and her followers present to the

1 A United Buddhist World: being Fourteen Fundamental Buddhistic
Beliefs, certified by the High Priests of Burma, Chittagong, Ceylon and
Japan, to be common to Northern and Southern Buddhism. Commit hv
H. S. Olcott (Madras, 1892). y

128

LAST ESSAYS.

public as esoteric, because they have never given us
chapter and verse for what they call Buddhism,

whether esoteric or exoteric.

I have already alluded to the difficulty of speaking
of Buddhism in general, or laying down what, doc-
trines are considered as orthodox or as heterodox by
Buddha and by his numerous disciples and followers.
Buddhism, we must remember, was, from the very
beginning, but one out of many philosophical and
religious systems which abounded in India at all
times. We know that the same freedom of thought
which Buddha claimed for himself in forsaking the
old Brahmanic traditions was claimed by several of
his contemporaries who became founders of new
schools. There was very little of what we should
call dogma in Buddha’s teaching. He professed to
deliver man from suffering by showing them the
unreal and transitory character of the world. But
with regard to- some of what we call the fundamental
questions of religion— the existence of a deity, the
reality and immortality of the soul, the creation and
government of the world— he allowed the greatest
freedom : nay, it seems to be his chief object to protest
against any positive dogma on these points. Hence
there arose from a very early time a large number
of what have been called sects among the Buddhists,
thouo-h they seem to have been hardly more than
either philosophical schools or small congregations
committed to the observance of certain minute points

of discipline. , _ *

We read in the chronicles of Ceylon, the Dipavansa
(v. 53) and Mahavansa (v. 8), of eighteen sects the
origin of which is referred to the second century after

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 129

Buddha. Though that date seems doubtful, we cannot
doubt that at the time of Asoka, or in the third
century B. c., these eighteen sects existed, and likewise
six so-called modern sects. We know the names of
t ese sects as they have been preserved in Sanskrit,
Bali, Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian documents, but
ot their origin and of the points on which each
differed from the rest our information is as yet very
insufficient. It is curious that so much should have
been preserved, and yet so little. We have long lists
of names, but very little beyond the names. In some
cases the points on which one sect differed from the
other were extremely trifling, such as whether salt
might be kept longer than seven days; whether
animals exist in heaven ; whether a child ean be
converted before it is born ; whether the thoughts of
a dreamer are indifferent ; whether Buddha was born
m all quarters of the universe, and whether some
Buddhas surpass others. In other cases the points of
difference are of greater importance, such as whether
there is a soul in man; whether the dead derive
benefit from gifts; whether prophecy is possible;
whether a knowledge of other people’s thoughts can
be obtained by meditation; whether a layman can
become an Arhat and obtain Nirvana; whether
Buddha was really born in the world of men ; whether
Buddha had mercy; whether he was superhuman in
t e ordinary affairs of life1; whether the doctrine of
Buddha was altered and made afresh at the great

Rhys Davids, Journ. Roy. Asiatic Soc. (1892'). p. 9. How far such
questions on the true character of a Buddha can be carried may be
seen from the fact that one sect differed from the rest by holding
that excrementa Buddhae sunt suaveolentia. 0

II.

130

LAST ESSAYS.

Councils. The number of these sects seems always
to have been on the increase, and when m the faith
and the seventh centuries Chinese pilgiims visi ec
India, their number had become so great that one
can hardly understand how any unity could have

been preserved among them.

If all these points, and many more, were left open
questions between the Buddhist sects, we can well
understand how there should be so much disagreement
among those who undertook to write a history o
Buddhism. We know that on some of the most im-
portant points Buddha himself declined to pronounce
a decided opinion, and, in this sense, Madame Blavatsky
would be quite right in saying that we do not know
for certain what Buddha taught his disciples and his
disciples their followers, who became the founders
of these numerous sects. Still, whatever we know
of Buddha and Buddhism, we must try to know at
first-hand— that is to say, we must be prepared to
give chapter and verse in some canonical or authon-
tative book ; we must not appeal to Mahatmas on t
other side of the Himalayas. Various attempts have
been made to show that the Canon of the Southern
Buddhists, the so-called TripBaka, the Three Baskets,
was more modern than the Buddhists themselves
represent it to be. Some scholars have gone so far
as' to assign to it a date more recent than that o
the New Testament. I have always admitted that
the tradition of its being the work of the immediate
disciples of Buddha, at the first Counci held m the
very year of Buddhas death, is untenable, or at all
events doubtful. But I have never doubted that a
real Canon of sacred texts was settled at the Counci

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 131

held under Asoka in the third century before our
era. This date has now been confirmed by inscrip-
tions. Asoka s well-known inscriptions refer to single
portions of the Canon only, but Dr. Hultzsch has
pointed out that in one of the smaller Bharhut
inscriptions1 there occurs the word ‘ pakanekayika ’
—a man who knows the five Nikayas. These five
Nakayas are the five divisions of the Suttapkaka,
and as the inscription dates from the third century
b. C., we may rest assured that at that time the most
important part of the Buddhist Canon, the Suttapkaka,
existed as we now have it, divided into five portions
the Digha-nikaya, the Map^Mma-nikaya, the Sa?n-
yutta-nikaya, the Anguttara-nikaya, and the Khud-
daka-nikaya 2.

However, with all that has been done of late for
the study of Buddhism, no honest scholar would deny
that we know as yet very little, and that we see but
darkly through the immense mass of its literature
and the intricacies of its metaphysical speculations.
This is particularly true with regard to what is called
the Mahayana, or Northern Buddhism. There are still
several of the recognized canonical books of the
Northern Buddhists, the Nine Dharmas, of which
the MSS. are beyond our reach, or which frighten
even the most patient students by their enormous
bulk. In that sense Madame Blavatsky would be
quite right — that there is a great deal of Buddhism
of which European scholars know nothing. But we
need not go to Madame Blavatsky or to her Mahatmas
in Tibet in order to know this, and it is certainly not

1 No. 144, Z. D. M. G., xl. 75.

2 See Neumann, Buddhist. Anlhologie, p. xii, n.

K 3

LAST ESSAYS.

132

from her hooks that we should derive our information
of the Mahay ana literature. We should go to the
MSS. in our libraries, even in the Bodleian, in order
to do what all honest Mahatmas have to do, copy
the MSS., collate them, and translate them. In the
translations of the Sacred Books of the East whic
the University of Oxford has entrusted to my editor-
ship, and to which I have devoted the last sixteen
years of my life, any one who takes a serious interest
in the Science of Religion will find ample materials,
and what is more, important authentic materials,
translated, as well as they can be translated at present,
by the best • scholars in England, France, Germany,
and India. Deeply grateful as I feel to the University
of Oxford, and to the Secretary of State for India, lor
having allowed me' the leisure and the funds necessary
for carrying out so large an undertaking, I cannot
but regret that, like all the work we undertake in
this life, this too must be left imperfect. It is true,
a series of forty-eight volumes is a small library by
itself, but, compared with what ought to have been
done, it is but a beginning. I have often been blamed
for not having included in my series a number ol
books every one of which seems to this or that scholar
of supreme importance. No doubt I ought to have
o-iven a translation of • one at least of the . eighteen
Puranas, but my critics have evidently no idea how
difficult it is to find at the right time the right trans-
lator for the right book. My correspondence about
the translation of the V&yu-Pur&na would fill a little
volume by itself. The Vedic literature, also, is as yet
very imperfectly represented. But Vedic scholarship
is in a period of transition, and no Vedic scholar is

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM:. 133

willing to commit himself more than he can help.
Everybody is at work in deciphering a word here
and a word there ; some may venture on translating
a few verses or a few hymns, but a complete transla*
tion of the Rig-veda will not, I am afraid, form part
of oui jin-de-siecle literature. Sanskrit scholars also
must leave something to the next century to do
besides deciphering the many as yet undeciphered
Egyptian, Accadian, Babylonian, Etruscan, Lycian,
and Orkhon inscriptions. Now that my series of the
Sacred Books of the East has come to an end, offers
of assistance come in from many sides for which
foimeily I should have been most grateful. Let
others who are younger and stronger take up the
work where I left it. To the value of this series
the most competent judges have borne their testimony.
This only I may venture to say myself— that this
collection of the Sacred Books of the East, brought
out with the co-operation of the best Oriental scholars,
will, for the future, render such aberrations as Madame
Blavatsky’s Esoteric Buddhism impossible. I know
that it will continue to live and continue to do good
as long as people continue to care for what they have
hitherto cared most for, namely, religion — not only
a religion, not only this or that special religion which
they have themselves inherited, but for religion as
a universal blessing and as the most precious birth-
right of the whole human race.

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM1.

(A Reply to Professor Max Muller by

N any subject connected with the sacred literatuie
of the East Professor Max Muller writes— for

English readers— with great authority. His article
therefore on Esoteric Buddhism will, no doubt, have
been accepted but too widely as fatal to the system
of thought identified with that expression. He finds
nothing in the Buddhist books about any intexioi
teaching behind that plainly conveyed, and con-
fidently declares that nothing of the kind exists. I or
people altogether ignorant of theosophical doctrine
this will be conclusive ; others, acquainted in some
measure with theosophical literature, will be puzzled
at the professor’s attitude. He refrains from coming
in any way to close quarters with the body of beliel
he seeks to discredit, ignoring it so entirely that one
cannot make out whether he has taken the trouble
to look into it at all. And, summed up in a few
words, his argument is that Buddhism cannot contain
any teaching hitherto kept secret, because the books
hitherto published do not disclose any secrets of the
kind. If they had done so, where would have been
the secrecy1? When we know what the esoteric teaching

1 Reprinted by permission from the Nineteenth Century, June, 1 °93*

Mr. A. P. Sinnett.)

ESOTERIC BUDEHISM.

135

is we may indeed find evidence in the published books
to show that it was known to their authors ; but when
any one says ‘ There is an esoteric side to Buddhism,’
that is equivalent to saying there is a view of this
subject which is not found in the books. How is he
shown to be wrong by the fact that the books do not
contain it ?

But the present attack is further embarrassing in
this way : it rests chiefly on an unfavourable survey
of Madame Blavatsky’s career, associated with criti-
cisms of her book Isis Unveiled. That was written
some years before Esoteric Buddhism was formulated,
and Madame Blavatsky was not the writer who formu-
lated that system. All students of theosophy are under
deep obligations to her. But Professor Max Muller
gives us the history of the movement upside down.
Before I can vindicate the ideas he seeks to disparage,

I must comb out the facts which he has left in such
curious confusion.

In 1883 I was enabled to bring into intelligible
shape a view of the origin and destinies of man
derived from certain teachings with which I was
favoured while in India. It challenged the attention
of Western readers because it seemed to furnish a
more reasonable interpretation of man’s spiritual
constitution and of the world’s purpose, than any
with which European thought had previously been
concerned. It provided something like a scientific
abstract of all religious doctrine, by the help of which
it was easy to separate the wheat from the chaff in
various ecclesiastical creeds. Allowing for symbolical
methods of treatment as entering largely into popular
religions, the new teaching showed that Brahmanism,

136

LAST ESSAYS.

Buddhism, and Christianity could be accounted for as
growing up at various periods in India and Europe
from the same common root of spiritual knowledge.
But since Buddhism had apparently separated itself
less widely than other religions from the parent stem,
I gave my hook the title Esoteric Buddhism, partly
in loyalty to the exterior faith preferred by those from
whom my information had come, partly because even
in its exterior form that religion was already attracting
a great deal of sympathetic interest in Europe, and
seemed the natural bridge along w^hich European
thinking might be conducted to an appreciation of
the beautifully coherent and logical view of Nature
I had been enabled to obtain.

The name of the book clung to the system it de-
scribed, and no one was more surprised or amused
than its author when people, attracted by its means
to become theosophists, or students of Divine science,
were first spoken of by newspaper writers, dealing
hastily with the new departure of thought, as ‘ Esoteric
Buddhists.’ In that form the term was a misnomer.
Theosophists might just as well have been called
Esoteric Christians or Esoteric Brahmins. But it is
one thing for reviewers, dealing on the spur of the
moment with a new school of philosophy, to appre-
hend it imperfectly ; it is another for a learned pro-
fessor, attacking it ten years later, to eclipse their
worst mistakes.

To begin with, Professor Max Muller calls Madame
Blavatsky the founder of Esoteric Buddhism, and
describes her as a ‘ clever, wild, and excitable girl,’ in
search of a new religion she could honestly embrace.
Her clever girlhood had ripened till she was close on

ESOTEKIC BUDDHISM.

137

sixty, when the term Esoteric Buddhism was first
brought into use ; and, whether it was a good or a
bad term, she had nothing to do with its selection,
and indeed quarrelled with it — as I think, rather un-
necessarily— in some of her later writings. What she
leally founded was the Theosophical Society for the
study of Eastern Religions (among other objects), and it
was through that Society, and through her aid in the
fii st instance for which I can never be sufficiently
giateful that I came into relations with the fountain
of information from which my teaching has ever since
been derived. But when Professor Max Muller pro-
ceeds to find fault with Isis Unveiled , and criticizes
that interesting and suggestive work by picking out
a Greek word that is incorrectly written, fancying in
that way to cast discredit on a scheme of philosophy
promulgated years after Isis was written, in a book
by another author, the misdirection of his fault-finding
is on a level with the pettiness of the criticism itself.
It is notorious to all who knew Madame Blavatsky
that she was not only capable of making any imagin-
able mistake in writing a Greek word, but scarcely
knew so much as the alphabet of that language. To
understand how it came to pass that under those cir-
cumstances the manuscripts she wrote with her own
hand were freely embellished with Greek quotations,
would require a comprehension of many curious
human capacities outside the scope of that scholarship
of which Professor Max Muller is justly proud, but un-
fortunately too often inclined to mistake for universal
knowledge.

In so far as his present article is directed to dis-
credit Esoteric Buddhism, Professor Max Muller’s

138

LAST ESSAYS.

rapid sketch of Madame Blavatsky’s career is, for the
reasons I have pointed out, irrelevant from A to Z.
But the careless plan he has followed in dealing with
the subject itself is in keeping with the personal
notice. ‘ People,’ he says, ‘ were taken aback by the
assurance with which this new prophetess spoke of
her intercourse with unseen spirits ; of letters flying
through the air from Tibet to Bombay ; of showeis ot
flowers falling from the ceiling of a dining-room ; of
saucers disappearing from a tea-tray and being found
in a garden, and of voices and noises proceeding from
spirits through a mysterious cabinet. You may ask
how educated people could have been deceived by such
ordinary jugglery ; but with some people the power of
believing seems to grow with the absurdity of what is
to be believed.’ There is no item in this catalogue of
wonders that correctly quotes any single incident re-
corded in any original narrative of Madame Blavatsky s
doings. My own book, The Occult T Yovlcl, is the pun
cipal reservoir of all such records, but, as usual with
people who wish to ridicule its testimony, Professor
Max Muller prefers to deal not with the book itself,
but with some third-hand caricature of its contents.
Modern psychic investigation has already harmonized
with subtle forces of nature, some of the surprising
powers which Madame Blavatsky exhibited. In
talking of jugglery, Professor Max Muller is probably
unaware that the leading ‘juggler’ or conjuror of
America, Mr. Kellar, has recently written an article
in the North American Review acknowledging that
his experience of wonder-working in India has intio
duced him to some performances that lie quite out-
side the domain of the art he professes. That which

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

139

is really absurd in this connexion is the power a good
many people still show of disbelieving facts supported
by overwhelming evidence if these fail to fit in with
their own narrow experience. Credulity is sometimes
stupid, no doubt, but irrational incredulity may occa-
sionaliy be even more so. On that tempting theme,
however, I must not dilate for the moment. Madame
Blavatsky s achievements in connexion with psychic
faculties and forces not yet generally understood,
have nothing to do with the really important question
whether theosophical doctrine constitutes an accep-
table solution of the mysteries of life and death.

Still, paying no attention to that question, Professor
Max Muller says, ‘ No one can study Buddhism unless
he learns Sanskrit and Pali.’ No one can comprehend
Buddhism, he goes on unconsciously to show us, by
virtue merely of scholarship in those tongues. He
may do useful work in the preparation of translations
for students who deal with living thought rather than
with dead language, but Madame Blavatsky with all
her literary inaccuracy has done a great deal more
than the Sanskrit professor to interpret Eastern
thinking, and what are her verbal blunders beside
the confusion of the whole attack now made upon
hei 1 She certainly showed great shrewdness in
withdrawing herself and her description of Esoteric
Buddhism from all possible control and contradiction.
Her Buddhism, she declared, was not the Buddhism
which ordinary scholars might study in the canonical
books ; hers was Esoteric Buddhism.’ She did nothing
of the sort. She never used the term Esoteric Bud-
dhism except in her Secret Doctrine to find fault
with my use of it, on the somewhat technical ground

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that, meaning what I did, I ought to have spelled the
word with one ‘ d.’ In Isis, she wrote, ‘ it is not in
the dead letter of Buddhistical sacred literature that
scholars may hope to find the true solution of the
metaphysical subtleties of Buddhism,’ but she was
not then engaged in developing the system now called
Esoteric Buddhism. She was simply pouring out
a flood of miscellaneous information concerning the
inner meaning of old-world religions and symbologies,
the mysteries of Egypt and Greece, the modern initia-
tions of the East, and the teaching she had acquired
there with reference to super-physical planes of nature
already beginning to be recognized in the Western
world as connecting our phase of existence, however
vaguely and cloudily, with other conditions of being.
The book was not designed to teach anything in
particular, but to stir up interest in an unfamiliar
body of occult mysteries. For many people it did
this effectually. The Theosophical Society was set
on foot ; it came to pass that I was entrusted with
the task of putting into intelligible shape the views
of life and nature entertained by certain Eastern
initiates who were interested in the Theosophical
Society, and the movement gradually assumed its
present character. Nothing is further from my wish
than to claim— at Madame Blavatsky’s expense — any
peculiar merit for myself in the matter. I took charge
of a message and carried it to Western readers. But
I was a messenger from those whom Madame Blavatsky
also to the best of her ability endeavoured to represent

not from herself. This is the important fact for all

to remember who wish to understand the present
position of Theosophy. All of us who have been

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

141

concerned, one way or another, with the movement
have acknowledged the immense services Madame
Blavatsky rendered in bridging the chasm which
separated modern thought from esoteric enlighten-
ment. But with Theosophy itself as a guide through
the mazes of existence, Madame Blavatsky’s merits
and demerits have nothing at all to do. Individuals
lise ana sink in the stream of a great movement ; they
do not constitute it. Those who most love and revere
Madame Blavatsky are doing the worst service they
can render to the -cause she worked for, by pinning
her name to Theosophy, and making it look like
a sect with one fallible mortal at its head. The}7
might as well call astronomy Tycho-Brahism, and
study the stars exclusively on the basis of the Danish
observers ideas. Not less absurd in another way is
the. commonplace attack on Theosophy based on the
notion that Madame Blavatsky was its fraudulent
inventor. The estimation in which she was held to
the last by a devoted body of friends — whose contri-
butions to theosophical literature effectually rebuke

the theory that they were weak-minded dupes is a

brief but emphatic refutation of unjust accusations
on which too much paper and thought have been ex-
pended. Either way the time has gone by for treat-
ing Theosophy as a question depending on Madame
Blavatsky’s personality. Her books remain to be
considered on their merits like all other expositions
of theosophical doctrine, but neither to be regarded
as infallible on the one hand nor as discrediting°Theo-
sophy by their mistakes on the other.

At the time of the Oriental Congress last September,
theosophical writers were beginning to hope they had

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drawn Professor Max Muller into some appreciation
of the inner significance of that Oriental literature to
the translation of which he had devoted so much
industry. He spoke then of the TJpanishads and of
the ancient philosophy of the Vedanta as throwing
‘ new light even to-day on some of the problems
nearest to our own hearts.’ This was a great advance on
earlier utterances, in which he dealt with the Vedas,
at all events, as the prattling of humanity’s baby-
hood— or in words to that effect. But now he has
again relapsed, and declares there are no mysteiies
and nothing esoteric either in Buddhism or Brah-
manism, though again, later on, he says, No honest
scholar would deny that we know as yet very little
[of Buddhism], and that we see but darkly through
the immense mass of its literature and the intiicacies
of its metaphysical speculations.’ This admission is
opposed to the force of the bold statement with which
he sets out, ‘ that there is no longer any secret about
Sanskrit literature, and . . . that we in England know
as much about it as most native scholars.’ In view of
information on the subject I have had from ‘ native
scholars ’ the contention is ludicrous, but the question
whether there are or are not hidden records beaiing
on the secrets of Eastern initiation has nothing to
do with the main point. Over and above whatever
written records exist, there are traditional beliefs and
views of nature amongst certain people in India that
had not been published anywhere till the current
theosophical movement began. I got at these by
living in India and coming into relations with those
who entertained them, and were willing at last that
they should in some measure be made public. Professor

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

143

Max Muller, without stopping to think how his own
testimony corroborates my position, says there is
nothing of all this in the sacred books. Of course not ;
but, to a greater extent than Professor Max Muller
imagines, all this is darkly hinted at in the sacred
books. Nobody could pick up these hints unless he
had first been instructed in the esoteric doctrine, but
to any one who knows something of this the allusions
are apparent. From the proper theosophical point
of view they are not very important. The theo-
sophical teaching is valuable for its intrinsic worth.
It ought not to be recommended to European readers
because there is authority behind it. For us the
authority from which it emanates need only begin
to command respect when we understand the teaching.
If it had not been found worthy of respect for its own
sake, it would have fallen dead. Instead of that,
Esoteric Buddhism is read in a dozen editions and
languages all over the world. And in time people
who read, acquiring from the teaching itself a compre-
hension of the sources from which it is now derived,
grow interested in questions of authority. Around
these a considerable theosophic literature grows up.
Professor Max Muller does not even glance at it. He
hammers away at the single notion— I do not find your
secret teachings in the public Buddhist writings. Why
does not he argue — there cannot be any ore in the
mine for there is none lying on the surface? But,
coming back to the traces on the surface that may
show those who can interpret them where there
is ore lying below, let me offer an illustration of
esoteric canonical records that are mere nonsense
taken as the scholar takes them — literally but full

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LAST ESSAYS.

of luminous significance read in the light of esoteiic
teaching.

Rarely have the scholars blundered more absurdly
than in dealing with the records of Buddha’s death,
and in reading cm pied de la lettre the story of bis
fatal illness supervening on a meal of ‘ dried boar s
flesh ’ served to him by a certain Kunda — a copper-
smith at Pava. Laborious students of Oriental
language — never concerning themselves with Oriental
thought— accept this as meaning, in words quoted by
Alabaster in the Wheel of the Laiv, that Buddha died
of ‘ dysentery caused by eating roast pork.’ Dr. Rhys
Davids gives currency to this ludicrous misconception.
Common sense ought to have been startled at the
notion that the diet of so ultra-confirmed a vegetarian
as a Hindoo religious teacher could not but be, could
be invaded by so gross an article of food as roast
pork. But worshippers of the letter which killeth
are apt to lose sight of common sense. In reality
boar’s flesh is an Oriental symbol for esoteric know-
ledge, derived from the boar avatar of Vishnu — an
elaborate allegory which represents the incarnate god
lifting the earth out of the waters with his tusks— a
transaction which Wilson explains in his translation
of the Vishnu Purana as representing ‘ the extrication
of the world from a deluge of iniquity by the rites of
religion.’ Dried boar’s flesh clearly stands in the
1 Book of the Great Decease ’ for esoteric knowledge
prepared for popular use — reduced to a form in which
it could be taught to the multitude. It was through
too daring an attempt to carry out this policy that
Buddha’s enterprise came to an end. That is the true
meaning of the allegory so painfully debased when

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

145

taken at the foot of the letter. The esoteric view of
the story is shown obviously to be the right one by
many subordinate details. For example, Buddha
directs that only he shall make use of the dried boar’s
ilesh at the allegorical feast. The brethren shall be
served with cakes and rice. None but he himself
can digest such food, he says, and whatever is left
over shall be buried, so that no others may partake
of it ; a singular order for him to give on the literal
interpretation of the story, seeing that he is repre-
sented as not able to digest it, and as dying of its
effects. Of course the meaning plainly is that no one
of lesser authority than himself must take the respon-
sibility of giving out occult secrets.

Even more glaring references to esoteric mysteries
are embodied in the Akankheyya Sutta1, where
Buddha describes the various attainments open to
a Ihikkhu, or disciple who has joined his order.

If a Bhikkhu should desire, brethren, to exercise one by one
each of the different Iddhis, being one to become multiform, beino-
multiform to become one ; to become visible, or to become in-
Vlslble ; to go without being stopped to the further side of a wall
or a fence, or a mountain, as if through air ; to penetrate up and
down through solid ground, as if through water ; to walk on the
water without dividing it, as if on solid ground ; to travel cross-
legged through the sky, like the birds on the wing; to touch and
feel with the hand even the sun and the moon, mighty and power-
ful though they be ; and to reach in the body, even up to the
Heaven of Brahma ; let him then fulfil all righteousness ; let him
be devoted to that quietude of heart which springs from within •
let him not drive back the ecstasy of contemplation ; let him look
through things ; let him be much alone.'

So on through several pages. Does this read like
nonsense in materialistic Europe ? The esoteric teach-

1 Vol. xi, Sacred Books of the East.

II.

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LAST ESSAYS.

ing makes it all intelligible. The whole passage relates
to'the capacities which are possible for the esoterically-
trained and initiated disciple who can live in full
consciousness in the astral body, who can render that
perceptible (or visible) to ordinary senses if he chooses,
to whom the solid matter of the physical plane is no
impediment, nor distance an embarrassment. The
Sutta in which it occurs points to hidden methods of
teaching and training from beginning to end. And
the White Lotus of Dharma, edited by Professor
Max Muller, refers also to the magical faculties of the
Buddhist adept, while Ananda was not allowed to sit
in the first convocation till he had performed the
« miracles ’ recognized as qualifying him to be regarded
as an Arhat. Certainly the public writings do not
say minutely how an aspirant is to acquire the
abnormal knowledge and powers necessary for such
achievements. The real esoteric knowledge, never
written down, but handed from master to pupil in the
processes of initiation, is alone competent to give
practical guidance in such matters. But, as we see,
the authority of the canonical books can be quoted
as showing that the achievements are recognized as
attainable. Does Professor Max Muller regard them
as the logical outcome of mere virtuous practice?
If not, the old writers clearly suppressed some branch
of their teaching in addressing the world at large.
It is not enough for Professor Max Muller to say that
in describing Arhat powers they were talking nonsense.
For the moment that is not the question. Had they
in their minds the belief that certain processes of
training might lead to those powers ? If they had,
they were conscious of an esoteric side to their teaching,

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

147

and It is obvious beyond dispute that they did entertain
such a belief.

"W 01 ship of the letter in dealing with sacred writings
ias been the curse of modern religion, stultifvino- the
spiritual meaning of more books than those under
consideration. It is hardly probable that Professor
Max Muller would be fettered to that system in
discussing Western scriptures, so that it is doubly
amazing e should apply that disastrous method of
interpretation to the Sacred Books of the East, on

which he has bestowed so much of his time and
energy.

He tells us that ‘ Buddhism was the highest

flbr:rT^m^PUlariZed’ eveiT^ing esoteric being

18 a misreading even of the exoteric
records Buddhism popularized Brahmanism in the

sense of showmg that the attainment of high spiritual
beat.tude was open to all men who trod the right
pa i not merely, as Brahmanism taught, to the
Brahmins The esoteric initiations were not abolished
merely held out to all who should become worthy.

B ni!S ?lreai,meaDing °f the Phrase attributed to
Buddha, The Tatagatha has no such thing as the

c osed fist of a teacher who keeps some things back ’

k ?aX MUl]er sa37S> f Whatever we
, °, Buddha and Buddhism we must try to know

is ant —that is to say, we must be prepared to
°\Ve c aP^er and verse in some canonical or authori-
tative book ; we must not appeal to Mahatmas on the
other side of the Himalayas.’ But whether I obtained
the teaching on which Esoteric Buddhism rests from
a Mahatma on the other side of the Himalayas or
evolved them out of my own head need only interesi

148

LAST ESSAYS.

people who begin to be seriously interested in the
teaching on its own prima facie, intrinsic claims.
It is childish to condemn a doctrine as wrong because
it emanates from somebody unknown to the reader.
It may be rationally ignored by any one bold enough
to say, ‘I never trust my own judgement ; I only
consider ideas when they are hall-marked as fit for
acceptance by some acknowledged authority.’ It may
be rationally attacked by any one prepared to assail it
on its merits,— if it interests the world in spite of its
unknown source. But it can only be irrationally
attacked by a writer who neglects the thing said, and
yet denounces it because he does not know anything
about the person who says it. ‘ What I know not
is not knowledge,’ as one distinguished professor is
supposed to have put the idea. Professor Max Muller
improves on the epigram : ‘ Philosophers I know not
have no existence.’ He tells us ‘Mahatma’ is a well-
known Sanskrit word applied to men who have retired
from the world as great ascetics. ‘ That these men
are able to perform most startling feats and to suffer
most terrible tortures is perfectly true.’ But the term
meaning great-souled has become an honorary title.
He himself has had letters from Benares addressed
to him as Mahatma. With the recollection of the
tone in which I have heard Professor Max Muller’s
comments on Indian philosophy discussed by native
pundits at Benares and elsewhere, it seems just possible
there may have been a touch of irony in such a mode
of address ; but India is, of course, a land of hyper-
bolical compliment. The servants of any European
will call him ‘ Huzoor,’ or ‘ your Majesty ’ ; everybody
is a lord to the man next below him ; and, in a spirit

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

149

of mockery, so conventional that it has lost all sting,
the humblest retainer of every Indian household— the
f-?eiTis habitually called by his companions
‘Maharajah.’ This is how it comes to pass that
rofessor Max Muller has been misled about the
Indian ideas attached to the term Mahatma. Seriously
used, it is a term of sublime respect. Applied to the
yogi or faqueer who lives in the forest and performs
the k startling feats’ which our professor so oddly
recognizes— though so scornful of the only such feats
abundantly vouched for in recent years— it would
merely be a phrase of conventional compliment
I never heard it used even in that way in application
to the yogi of the jungle, but negative experience does
not count for much. Any one knowing India will feel
that it might be used in the way I describe.

Inasmuch as Professor Max Muller says no word
concerning the views or system of philosophy set forth
in Esoteric Buddhism, one can hardly complain that
he has travestied or misrepresented them. He has
talked up in the air about something else, and, as the
article stands, it reads like an attack on the undulatory
theory of light grounded on a contention that Sir Isaac
Newton mismanaged the Mint. But parting company
from him for a moment, to explain the teachino- he
' lsaPProves of— without having been at the pains to
ascertain what it is— the leading ideas of Esoteric
Buddhism may be summed up briefly as follows :—

The human creature as we know him is a manifesta-
tion on the physical plane of nature of a complex
spiritual being developed by slow degrees, by the
aggregation round a spiritual nucleus of the capacities
and most durable characteristics engendered by his

150

LAST ESSAYS.

experience of life through a prolonged series of
existences. The body is a mere instrument on which
the interior entity performs — such music as he has
learned to make. Between the body and the true
spiritual nucleus lie intervening principles which
express the lower consciousness, active during physical
life. The consciousness, both lower and higher, is quite
capable of functioning in vehicles independent of the
body, and belonging, as regards the material of which
they consist, to the next superior plane or manifestation
of nature— called for convenience and following the
nomenclature of mediaeval occultists — the astral plane,
though it has nothing whatever to do with the stars.
In every life much of the consciousness that makes
up the complete man relates to transitory or ignoble
things. After death, therefore, the persistence of this
lower consciousness retains the soul for a time on the
astral plane, during which period under some conditions
it may sometimes become cognizable to still living
people, but by degrees the attachment to phases of
life which belong exclusively to the incarnate condition
wears off, and the real spiritual soul, or in other words
the original man, with only the loftier side of his
character or nature in activity, passes on to a state
of spiritual beatitude analogous to the heaven of
exoteric religious teaching. There the person who
has passed away is still himself ; his own consciousness
is at work, anti for a long time he remains in a state
of blissful rest, the correct appreciation of which
claims a great deal of attention to many collateral con-
siderations. When after a protracted period the specific
personal memories of the last lile have laded out
though the spiritual soul still retains all its capacities,

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

151

all the cosmic progress that it has earned, it is drawn
back into re-incarnation. The process is accomplished
by degrees. The whole entity is not at once conscious
within, or expressed by, the body of the young child.
But as this grows it becomes more and more qualified
to express the original consciousness of the permanent
soul, and when it is mature, it is once more the
oiiginal Ego, minus nothing but the specific memories
of its last life.

W hy does it not remember ? is always the first
question of the beginner in theosophic study. Because
we who do not remember are as yet but nature’s children.
Those who are further advanced along the line of
cosmic progress do remember. But the science of the
matter meanwhile is this. The higher spiritual soul
is the permanent element in the Ego, and if sufficiently
grown, can infuse each new personality which it
develops with memories which it, in that case, can
retain. But the lower side of ordinary human con-
sciousness, taking the race at its present average
development, is a good deal more vigorous than the
spiritual nature. The higher soul, immersed again
in a material manifestation, is choked as to its con-
sciousness for the time being by the weed growth
around it. There is plenty of time, however, in the
scheme of nature. After many incarnations the higher
soul may get strong enough to bear down the accu-
mulated tendencies gathering round it during its
earth-lives. Then an opportunity will come for
remembering past lives, and for many other achieve-
ments.

The laws which determine the physical attributes,
condition of life, intellectual capacities, and so forth

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LAST ESSAYS.

of the new body, to which the Ego is drawn by
affinities even more complicated than those of chemical
atoms, are known to esoteric and less accurately to
ordinary Buddhism as Karma. As you sow so shall
you reap. The acts of each life build up the conditions
under which the next is spent. In regard to his
happiness, and all that has to do with his well-being
on this earth, every man has been, in the fullest sense
of the term, his own creator, creating the conditions
into which he passes in accordance with the Divine
law that determines the nature of good and evil, and
the consequences of devotion to the one or the other.
As the earth-life is thus the school of humanity, it is
not an end in itself. To achieve higher spiritual
conditions of being is to escape beyond the necessity
for re-incarnation. Thus exoteric Buddhism talks of
escaping the perpetuation of life — meaning incarnate
life — as something desirable, in a way which leads
those who imperfectly grasp the esoteric significance
of the idea to suppose that the extinction of con-
sciousness is the object treated as desirable. The end
really contemplated is the permanent elevation of
consciousness to spiritual conditions. In the vast
scheme of nature, comprehended by the esoteric teach-
ing as that on which the world is planned, the ultimate
realization of such spiritual beatitude is regarded as
the destiny in reserve for the majority of mankind,
after immensely protracted schooling. But by great
efforts at any time after a certain turning-point in
evolution has been passed, those who realize the
potentialities of their being may enter at a relatively
early date on their sublime inheritance. To show
mankind at large the path which leads to this goal

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

153

is the final purpose of esoteric teaching. Incidentally,
it pours a flood of light on mysteries of nature that
are. partially penetrated in some other ways, co-
ordinating the otherwise incoherent phenomena of
mesmerism and psychic perception and of various
occurrences inaptly called supernatural, which some
people know to take place but cannot interpret, and
which others, content to despise what they cannot
account for, thrust aside with irrational laughter.
Already Theosophy has vindicated its own teachings
for many students whose interior faculties have been
lipe for development. The statements of Esoteric
Buddhism concerning realms of nature imperceptible
to the physical sight have already become realities for
some, who are thus enabled to throw back out of
their own experience a verification serviceable for
others of the occult science to which they owe their
progress.

This is the explanation of the fact that the ideas of
Esoteric Buddhism which Professor Max Muller does
not stoop to comprehend, much less to discuss, have
seemed important to many people, caring more for the
thing said than for the previous authority of the sayer
Though Madame Blavatsky would have been comically
ill-described even in her younger days as a person in
search of a religion in which she could honestly believe,
that attitude of mind is very widely spread throughout
the Western world. Theosophy has dealt with it by
providing interpretations of established dogma that
invest with an acceptable spiritual meaning creeds
offensive to healthy intelligence in their clumsv
ecclesiastical form. It has lifted thought above the
narrowness of the churches. The first thing a broad-

154

LAST ESSAYS.

minded thinker, speculating on the infinite mysteries
of nature, feels sure of is that no one body of priests
can have a monopoly of the truth. Theosophy shows
that scarcely any of them have even a monopoly ol
falsehood. It gives us religion in the form of abstract
spiritual science which can be applied to any faith,
so that we may sift its crudities from its truth. It
provides us in the system of re-incarnation — cleared
of all fantastic absurdities associated with the idea in
ages before the esoteric view was fully disclosed — with
a method of evolution that accounts for the inequalities
of human life. By the doctrine of Karma, attaching
to that system, the principle of the conservation of
energy is raised into a law operative on the moial as
well as on the physical plane, and the Divine element
of justice is brought back into a world from which it
had been expelled by European theologians. In ex-
plaining the psychic constitution of man, Theosophy
as developed by the Theosophical Society, not in the
soulless condition to which Professor Max Muller would
reduce it, puts on a scientific basis — that is to say, on
a footing where law is seen to be uniformly operative

the heterogeneous and bewildering phenomena of

super-physical experience. Every advance ot know-
ledge leaves some people aground in the rear, and
there are hundreds of otherwise distinguished men
amongst us who will probably never in this life realize
the importance of new researches on which many
other inquirers besides theosophists are now bent.
But their immobility will be forgotten in time.
Knowledge will advance in spite of them, and views
of nature, at first laughed at and discredited, will be
taken after a Avhile as matters of course, and, emerging

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

155

from the shadow of occultism, will pass down the
main current of science. Those of us who are early
in the field with our experience and information would
sometimes like to be more civilly treated by the
lecognized authorities of the world ; but that is a very
subordinate matter after all, and we have our rewards,
of which they know nothing. We are well content
to be in advance even at the cost of some disparaging
glances from our less fortunate companions.

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM1:

A Rejoinder.

IN giving an account of the religious movement
which was originated by Madame Blavatsky, and
which in England is best known under the name of
Esoteric Buddhism , I could not help saying something
about the antecedents of that remarkable woman,
though I knew that I should give pain to her numerous
friends and admirers and expose myself to rejoinders
from some of them. I should have preferred saying
nothing about her personally, and in order to avoid
entering into unpleasant details I referred my readers
to the biographical articles written in no unfriendly
spirit by her own sister, and published not long ago
in the Nouvelle Revue. But the movement which
bears her name is so intimately connected with her
own history, and depends so much on her personal
character and the validity of the claims which she
made for herself, or which were made for her by her
disciples, that it was quite impossible to speak of
Esoteric Buddhism without saying something also
of Madame Blavatsky and her antecedents. Though
I tried to take as charitable a view as possible of her
life and character, yet I was quite prepared that, even
after the little I felt bound to say, some of her friends

Nineteenth Century , August, 1S93.

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

157

and disciples would take up the gauntlet and defend
theii lately departed prophetess. Death wipes out
the recollection of many things which mar the beauty
and proportion of every human life, and in the case
of our own friends and acquaintances we often see
how, as soon as their eyes are closed in death, our
own eyes seem closed to every weakness and fault
which we saw but too clearly during their lifetime.
It is m human nature that it should be so. While the
battle of life is going on, and while we have to stand
up for what is right against what is wrong, our eyes
are but too keen to see the mote in our brother’s eye ;
but when we look on our friend for the last time
in his placid and peaceful slumber, many things which
we thought ought not to be forgiven and could never
be forgotten are easily forgiven and wiped out from
our memory. De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an old and,
if it is rightly interpreted, a very true sayino-. It js’
quite right that we should abstain from sayino- any-
thing about the departed except what is kind and
tirows no discredit on them ; but it is not right that
we should exaggerate their goodness or greatness, and
make saints or heroes of them, when we know that
they were far from being either the one or the other
In cases, more particularly, where the name or
authority of a departed teacher is invoked to lend
a higher sanction to doctrines which may be either
true or false, survivors are often in duty bound to
speak out, however distasteful it may be to them

to seem to attack those who can no lono-er defend
themselves. °

But though I was quite prepared to see Madame
Blavatsky and her life and doctrines warmly defended

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LAST ESSAYS.

by her disciples, I was not prepared to see one of her
favourite pupils coming forward so soon, after her
death to throw her over and claim for himself the
whole merit of having originated and named and
formulated Esoteric Buddhism and all that is implied
by that name. I knew indeed that a fierce stiuggle
was going on for the mantle of Madame Blavatsky,
and that Colonel Olcott had not yet decided who
was to be recognized as her legitimate successoi .
Few people outside the inner circle would grudge
Mr. Sinnett the exclusive paternity of Esoteric
Buddhism, but history is history, and I ask all who
have watched the origin and growth of Esoteric
Buddhism, what would Mr. Sinnett have been without
Madame Blavatsky? It is true that Zeus gave birth
to Athene without the help of Hera ; but did Esoteric
Buddhism spring full-armed from the forehead, of
Mr. Sinnett? Though he assures us that he claims
no merit at the expense of Madame Blavatsky, yet. he
says in so many words that she was not the wiitei
who formulated the system of Esoteric Buddhism.
He admits that she founded the Theosophical Society,
but he adds that with Theosophy itself her own merits
and demerits have nothing to do. He admits that
it was through Madame Blavatsky that he himself
came into relation with the fountains of information
from which his own teaching has been derived. He
says that he cannot be sufficiently grateful for her aid.
But he boldly claims to be an independent thinker,
a new messenger from the same Mahatmas whom
Madame Blavatsky also endeavoured to represent.
He repudiates the idea that he was a mere messenger
from her. It was he, not she, who was entrusted with

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

159

the task of putting into intelligible shape the views
of life and nature entertained by certain Eastern
initiates. Nay, as if afraid that those whose messenger
he professes to be might hereafter appear at Simla,
and claim the credit of being the real originators
of Esoteric Buddhism, he puts in a caveat and says,

‘ V. hether I obtained Esoteric Buddhism from a Ma-
hatma on the other side of the Himalaya or from
my own head is of no consequence.’ This sounds
ominous, and very much like a first attempt to throw
over hereafter, not Madame Blavatsky only, but like-
wise the trans-Himalayan Mahatmas. V ery few people
will agree with Mr. Sinnett that it is of no consequence
whether he obtained his transcendent philosophy from
ultra-montane Mahatmas or from his own inner con-
sciousness. If he had ever crossed from India to the
other side of the Himalayan mountain range, he would
hold a place of honour among geographical discoverers.
If, when arrived at the snowy heights so well described
by Hiouen-tsang and others, he had made the acquain-
tance there of one or several Mahatmas, and been
able to converse with them, whether in Tibetan or in
Sanskrit or even in Hindustani, on the profoundest
problems of philosophy, he would rank second only
to Csoma Korosi; and if, moreover, he could prove
that such doctrines as he himself comprehends under
the name of Esoteric Buddhism were at present taught
there by people, whether of Tibetan, Chinese, or Indian
origin, he would have revolutionized the history of
human thought in that part of the world. But if he
addressed the Geographical or the Asiatic or the Royal
Society, the first questions which he would have to
answer would surely be, By what route did you cross

160

last essays.

the Himalaya ? What were the names of your Mahat-
mas, and where did they dwell? In what language
or through what interpreters did you converse with
them on such abstruse topics as those which you call
Esoteric Buddhism % I have no doubt that Mr. Sinnett
has a straightforward answer to all these questions.
He probably possesses geographical maps, meteoro-
logical observations, and ample linguistic notes, made
duringhis long and perilous journeys. But it is carrying
modesty too far to say, as he does, that ^ makes no
difference whether he obtained what he calls Esotenc
Buddhism from Mahatmas on the other side of the
Himalaya, or, it may be, from his own head lo
the world at large, the only question of real interest
is whether the Himalaya has been crossed by him
from the Indian side, whether such doctrines as
Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Sinnett have published
as Esoteric Buddhism are taught by Mahatmas on the
snowy peaks of the Himalayan chain, and, if so, in
what language Mr. Sinnett was able to converse with
his teachers. Mr. Sinnett’s own head and Mr. Sinnett s
own philosophy do not concern us, at least at present.
I was concerned with Madame Blavatsky and with
the movement to which she had given the first impulse,
a movement which seemed to me and to many others
to have assumed such large proportions, and to cause
such serious mischief, that it could no longer be
ignored or disregarded. That Hegel’s Logic should
have been written in Germany m the nineteenth
century, after Kant and after Schellmg is perfectly
intelligible, at least quite as much as that Buddhas
new doctrine should have originated in India m the
sixth century B.C., and after the age of theUpamshads.

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

161

But if we were told that such a system had been
iscovered in the moon or in Central Africa, we should
be quite as much startled, and our curiosity would
have been quite as much roused, as by the assurance

n haS been called’ and [t maJ be wrongly

called, Esoteric Buddhism is taught at present on the

o er side of the Himalaya, and was communicated
there to such casual travellers as Madame Blavatsky
and Mr. Sinnett. Mr. Sinnett as well as Madame
Blavatsky must have the courage, not of their opinions
only but likewise of their facts. Anyhow, until the
questions as stated above have been answered Mr
Sinnett must forgive me if I confine my remarks to
Madame Blavatsky and the propaganda carried on in
hei name. We do not doubt that in time Mr. Sinnett
also may gam a large following, and whenever that
tune seems to have arrived we may consider it our
duty to study his books and warn the public at larae
against what may seem to be either wrong facts or
wrong conclusions. The mischief done by Madame
Blavatsky and her publications has -been brought
to my knowledge by several sad cases, nor should
have been induced to write on the subject at all
1 * not rePeatedly been appealed to to say in
public what I often said in piivate, and in answer
to numerous letters addressed to me.

Mr Sinnett is very angry with me for ,not having
read his own books and not having criticized his own
octrines. But, though I wrote against Esoteric
Buddhism, I never intended to write against him or
any of his books published under this or any other
name. If he claims an exclusive right in the title
of Esoteric Buddhism, he must establish that right

162

LAST ESSAYS.

by better evidence than his own ipse dixit. If, as be
tells us, Madame Blavatsky professed to write Esoteric
Buddhism with one d instead of two, this only shows
that she wTas ignorant of Sanskrit grammar, while
Mr. Sinnett, as a bona fide Sanskrit scholar, is well
aware that in past participles the final dh of budh
followed by t becomes ddh. But considering how
Madame Blavatsky declares again and again that her
Buddhism was not the Buddhism which ordinary
scholars might study in the canonical books, that
it is not in the dead letter of Buddhistical sacied
literature that scholars may hope to find tne tiue
solution of the metaphysical subtleties of Buddhism ;
when she adds that in using the term Buddhism she
does not mean to imply by it either the exotenc
Buddhism instituted by the followers of Gautama
Buddha, nor the modern Buddhistic religion, but the
secret philosophy of /Sakyamuni ; when she maintains,
moreover, that Gautama had a doctrine for his elect,
and another for the outside masses, what is her
Buddhism if not non-exoteric, i. e. esoteric h Why then
should it not be called so Why should Mr. Sinnett
wish to repudiate his spiritual wife, if not his spiritual
mother? That Mr. Sinnett may have written a book
on Esoteric Buddhism, that he may have formulated
doctrines which in Isis Unveiled are, as he says,
poured out in wild profusion, that he too holds
a commission from some unknown Eastern initiates,
that his book has been translated into a dozen lan-
guages—all this may be perfectly true. All I have
to say for myself is that, in criticizing Madame
Blavatsky and her own Esoteric Buddhism, I did
not feel bound to criticize him and his theosoph) .

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

163

I have now at the end of his > Rejoinder ’ seen for
the hist tune an abstract of what he calls his own
ormulated system of philosophy, and I have humbly
o confess that it is quite beyond me. Though
I flatter myself that I understand Plato and Aristotle,
bpmoza and even Hegel, I am quite unable to follow

; 1’’ 7unc;tti m his theosophical flights. Perhaps
1 need not be ashamed of this, for he tells us in so
many words that he is in advance of all of us, and
that he does not mind, therefore, some disparaging
g ances from his less fortunate companions. Tilf
therefore, he condescends to adapt his teaching to
the more limited capacities of his less fortunate
companions it would be in vain for us to attempt to
comprehend or to criticize his new philosophy, whether
it springs from trans-Himalaya Mahatmas or from
his own head. We must accept our fate among the
vulgus profanum ‘left aground in. the rear, and
nevei able to realize the importance of new re-
searches on which inquirers besides theosophists are
now bent.

mAS 1 kad never, in the whole of my article on
Madame Blavatsky and her own Esoteric Buddhism
ventured to criticize Mr. Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism’
did not , see that I was bound to answer liis
Rejoinder in the June number of this Review.

dpfhlS] ,Rej01ncIer had been inspired by a wish to
defend his once revered mistress, I should have felt
in duty bound to reply to it. But as his ‘ Rejoinder ’
so _ ai fr om being a defence of Madame Blavatsky
is m fact nothing but a plea for Mr. Sinnett himself’
whom I had never attacked, it was only out of respect
for the Editor of the Nineteenth Century that I was

M 2

164 '

last essays.

induced to write down a few remarks in reply to
what he had allowed to appear in the June number
of this Review.

Mr. Sinnett has summed up my argument against
Esoteric Euddhism in the following words : ‘ Buddhism
cannot contain any teaching hitherto kept secret,
because the books hitherto published do not disclose
any secrets.’ It is not a favourable summing up of
my argument, but even thus I willingly accept it.
My argument, as represented by Mr. Sinnett, has the
weak point of all inductive arguments. We say, for
instance, that the sun will never rise in the west, but
we can produce no other proof but that hitherto the
sun has always risen in the east, strict reasoners
may say, and may truly say, that it may, for all that,
rise in the west to-morrow; and if that concession
is any comfort to the logical conscience of Mr. Sinnett
or anybody else, no one would wish to deprive them
of it. Mr. Sinnett takes me to task on the same
ground once more. Why., he asks, do I not aigue
that there cannot be any ore in a mine because there
is none on the surface ? Has Mr. Sinnett never heard
of a deserted mine with unused windlass and dangling
rope ? Has he never heard what happened to specu-
lators who would bore and bore, though geologists
assured them that there was and that there could be
no coal in the stratum which they had chosen 1 What
o-eology can do for the miner, philology can do for
the student of literature and religion. Whoever
knows the successive strata of Greek literature,
knows that it is useless to look for Homeric poetry
after the age of Pericles. No scholar would hesitate
to say that whatever new papyri of Aristotle s

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

• 165

waitings may be discovered in the mummy-cases of
Egypt or elsewhere they will never contain a plea
for atomic theories. It is a well-known proverb in
India, that you may judge a sack of rice by a handful
taken out at random. The same applies to Buddhist
literature. We have the complete catalogue of the
Buddhist canon ; we are fully acquainted with large
portions of it, and with the same certainty with which
the astronomer denies the possibility of the sun rising
in the west we may assert that no Buddhist book
of ancient date and recognized authority will ever
contain esoteric platitudes. Buddha himself, as I have
shown, hated the very idea of esoteric exclusiveness.
He lived with the people and for the people, he even
adopted the vulgar dialects instead of the classical
Sanskrit. I therefore maintain my position as
strongly as ever, that we shall never find esoteric
twaddle in the whole of the Buddhist canon, as little
as we shall find coal beneath granite.

Mi. Sinnett finds fault with me for having doubted
Madame Blavatsky’s knowledge of Greek. But he
never understood the meaning of my remarks.

I pointed out that Madame Blavatsky’s creation of
Kakotkodaimon to match the Agathodaimon spoke
volumes as to the workings of her mind. Mr. Sinnett
imagines that I had simply pointed out an incorrect
spelling, and he says that I had made too much of so
triflmg a matter. Any readers acquainted with Greek
will easily have understood what I really meant. But
Mr. Sinnett throws over Madame Blavatsky altogether.

U is notorious to all who knew her’ (he writes) 'that she was not
only eapaWe of making any imaginable mistake in writing a Greek
woid, but scarcely knew so much as the alphabet of that language ’

166

LAST ESSAYS.

This is rather severe on Madame Blavatsky, and difficult
to reconcile with the solemn statement made by
another friend of hers, who assures us that she was
a scholar and had actually acquired a knowledge of
Pali. But, as if conscious of having been rather
unkind to Madame Blavatsky, Mr. Sinnett adds

‘To understand how it came to pass that under those circumstances
the MSS. she wrote with her own hand were freely embellished
with Greek quotations, would require a comprehension of many
curious human capacities outside the scope of that scholarship of
which Professor Max Muller is justly proud, but unfortunately
too often inclined to mistake for universal knowledge.

Mr. Sinnett evidently imagines that this assumption
of universal knowledge is a common failing of pro-
fessors, and he triumphantly quotes against me the
well-known lines —

‘ I am the master of my college,

What I know not is not knowledge.’

If, then, for once I may be allowed to claim universal
knowledge and speak in the language of esoteric
omniscience, I maintain that it would be by no means
difficult to understand these Greek embellishments in
Madame Blavatsky ’s publications. May not Madame
Blavatsky in a former birth have been a Greek Sibylla 1
And are not those who are further advanced along the
line of cosmic progress, and familiar with superphysical
phases of nature, able to recall their former experiences 3
Did not Buddha himself, at least according to the testi-
mony of his followers, claim that faculty, and was not
Madame Blavatsky so far advanced in Arhatship as
to be able to remember what in a former Kalpa she
knew as Madame BAa/3ar<ma 1 Let others suggest
other solutions ; a true Buddhist, like myselt, ac-

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

167

quainted with the iddkis, and the mysterious working
of psychic faculties and forces, can have no difficulty
in accounting for the presence of the Kahothodaimon
in Madame Blavatsky’s books.

As Mr. Sinnett seems to find it hard to deny any
of my facts or controvert any of the arguments based
on them, he has recourse to the favourite expedient of
discrediting or abusing the counsel for true Buddhism.
He says that I have no right to speak with authority.
I have never claimed to speak with authority. Far
from it ! I simply speak with facts and arguments.
Facts require no authority nor laws of logic, whether
inductive or deductive. In my article on ‘Esoteric
Buddhism,’ I have based my case on nothing but facts
and arguments. If Mr. Sinnett wifi prove my facts
wiong, I shall be most grateful and surrender them
at once. If he can show that my arguments offend
against the laws of logic, I withdraw them without
a pang. I never claimed to be a Pope or a Mahatma.
Mr. Sinnett appeals to the authority of ‘native scholars,’
and he assures us that he has heard ‘native scholars’’
at Benares and elsewhere discussing my comments on
Indian philosophy. Of course he means that they
were discussing them unfavourably. I do not doubt
the fact, but Mr. Sinnett does not give us the names
of the native scholars,’ nor inform us in what language
their discussion took place. Now there are ‘native
scholars and native scholars,’ but even the most learned
among them would not claim any infallible authority.

I know many native scholars and have had frequent
communications with them by letter. I have often
expressed my admiration for the knowledge of some
of them, particularly of those who are specialists and

168

LAST ESSAYS.

know one book or one subject only, but thoroughly.
I have had controversies with some of them, and
nothing could be more pleasant and courteous than
their manner of arguing. I differ from them on some
points, and they differ from me. I must therefore leave
it to a Sanskrit scholar like Mr. Sinnett to judge
between us, and to determine who is right and who
is wrong ; but he must not imagine that he can frighten
me or my readers by appeals to unknown and anony-
mous ‘ native scholars.’ If ‘ native scholars ’ have
declared my contention that there is no longer any
secret about Sanskrit literature to be ludicrous, may
I remind Mr. Sinnett that he has accidentally forgotten
to prove his major premiss that anything that seems
ludicrous to any native scholar is ipso facto untrue.

Mr. Sinnett has taken the opportunity of giving, at
the end of his ‘Rejoinder,’ a specimen of what he
means by Esoteric Buddhism. This is a grave indis-
cretion on his part,, and if any native scholar or
Mahatma confided it to him, and it did not rather
come from his own head, the consequences of such an
indiscretion may become very serious to him and his
followers, whoever they may be.

It is a well-known and to my mind a very significant
episode in Buddha’s life that he dies as an old man
after having eaten a meal of boar’s flesh oflered him
by a friend. With a man like Buddha, who was
above the prejudices of the Brahmans, there is no
harm in this, but as it lends itself to ridicule it has
always seemed to me to speak very well for the
veracity of his disciples that they should have stated
this fact quite plainly. But Mr. Sinnett has been
initiated by Mahatmas, and he tells us that the roast

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.

169

pork of which Buddha partook was not roast pork at
all, but was meant as a symbol of Esoteric Know-
ledge, derived from the Boar avatar of Visfmu, and
that this avatar was an elaborate allegory which
represents the incarnate god lifting the earth out of
the waters with his tusks— a transaction which Wilson
in his translation of the Vishnu Pur&na explains as
representing the extrication of the world from the
deluge of iniquity by the rites of religion. Dried
boars flesh stands, as Mr. Sinnett assures us for
esoteric knowledge when prepared for popular ’use,
and reduced to a form in which it could be taught
t0„ latitude. It was owing to the daring attempt
ot Budaha to popularize his esoteric wisdom that
Buddhistic enterprise came to an end. If Buddha
died of that attempt, no one of lesser authorit}^ than
himself, we are told, must take the responsibility of
giving out occult secrets.

Mr. Sinnett is evidently running a great risk. He
has disregarded this very warning. He has swallowed
roast pork, or, what, according to him, is the same,
he has ventured to expound esoteric mysteries All
we can hope for is that his digestion may prove
stronger than that of Buddha, and that he will never
repeat so dangerous an experiment, even thouo-h he
meant it for the benefit of those who, like myself
‘ worship the letter that killeth and are apt to lose
sight of common sense.' Poor Dr. Rhys Davids, who,
as Mr. Sinnett maintains, has given currency to the5
ludicrous misconception as to Buddha having eaten
real roast pork, instead of having swallowed the Boar
who in the Vishnu Purina is said to have extricated
the world from the deluge of iniquity, may incur even

170

LAST ESSAYS.

greater penalties, particularly if, with most Sanskrit
scholars, native or otherwise, he should commit the
still greater heresy of maintaining that the Vishnu
Purana did not even exist in Buddha’s time, and that
therefore Buddha must have swallowed bona tide
pork, and not a merely esoteric boar.

THE ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST
IN INDIA1.

TINEAS SYLVIUS, afterwards Pope Pius the
Second, 1458-64, when on a visit to England,
was anxious to see with his own eyes the barnacle
geese that were reported to grow on trees, and, beino-
supposed to be vegetable rather than animal, were
allowed to be eaten during Lent. He went as far as
Scotland to see them, but arrived there he was told
that he must go further, to the Orchades, if he wished
to see these miraculous geese. He seemed rather
provoked at this, and, complaining that miracles would
always flee further and further, he gave up his goose
chase ( didicimus miracula semper remotius fugere).

Since his time, the number of countries in which
miracles and mysteries could find a safe hidino--plaCe
has been much reduced. If there were a single
barnacle goose left in the Orchades, i. e. the Orkney
Islands, tourists would by this time have given a o-0od
account of it. There are few countries left now beyond
the reach of steamers or railways, and if there is
a spot never trodden by a European foot, that is the
very spot which is sure to be fixed upon by some
adventurous members of the Alpine Club for their
next expedition. Even Central Asia and Central

‘ Nineteenth Century, October, 1894.

172

LAST ESSAYS.

Africa are no longer safe, and hence, no doubt, the
great charm which attaches to a country like Tibet,
now almost the only country some parts of which are
still closed against European explorers. It was in
Tibet, therefore, that Madame Blavatsky met her
Mahatmas, who initiated her in the mysteries of
EsotericBuddhism. Mr. Sinnett claims to have followed
in her footsteps, but has never described his or her
route. Of course, if Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Sinnett
had only told us by what passes they entered Tibet
from India, at what stations they halted, and in what
language they communicated with the Mahatmas, it
would not be courteous to ask any further questions.
That there are Mahatmas in India and Tibet no one
would venture to deny. The only doubt is whether
these real Mahatmas know, or profess to know, any-
thing beyond what they can, and what we can, learn
from their sacred literature. If so, they have only to
give the authorities to which they appeal for their
esoteric knowledge, and we shall know at once whether
they are right or wrong. Their Sacred Canon is
accessible to us as it is to them, and we could, therefore,
very easily come to an understanding with them as
to what they mean by Esoteric Buddhism. Their
Saci'ed Canon exists in Sanskrit, in Chinese, and in
Tibetan, and no Sacred Canon is so large and has at
the same time been so minutely catalogued as that of
the Buddhists in India, China, or Tibet.

But though certain portions of Tibet, and particularly
the capital (Lassa), are still inaccessible, at least to
English travellers from India, other portions of it, and
the countries between it and India, are becoming more
and more frequented by adventurous tourists. It

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 173

would therefore hardly be safe to appeal any longer
to unknown Mahatmas, or to the monks of Tibetan
monasteries, for wild statements about Buddhism,
esoteric or otherwise, for a letter addressed to these
monasteries, or to English officials in the neighbour-
hood, would at once bring every information that
could be desired. Where detection was so easy, it is
almost impossible to believe that a Russian traveller,
M. Notovitch, who has lately published a ‘ Life of
Christ dictated to him by Euddhist priests in the
Himis Monastery, near Leh, in Ladakh, should, as his
critics maintain, have invented not only the whole
of this Vie inconnue de Jenis-Chritt, but the whole of
his journey to Ladakh. It is no doubt unfortunate
that M. Notovitch lost the photographs which he took
on the way, but such a thing may happen, and if an
author declares that he has travelled from Kashmir
to Ladakh one. can hardly summon courage to doubt
his word. It is certainly strange that letters should
ha^e been received not only from missionaries, but
lately from English officers also passing through Leh,
who, after making careful inquiries on the spot, declare
that no Russian gentleman of the name of Notovitch
ever passed through Leh, and that no traveller with
a broken leg was ever nursed in the monastery of
Himis. But M. Notovitch may have travelled in
disguise, and he will no doubt be able to prove
through his publisher, M. Paul Ollendorf, how both
the Moravian missionaries and the English officers
were misinformed by the Buddhist priests of the
monastery of Leh. The monastery of Himis has often
been visited, and there is a very full description of it
m the works of the brothers Schlagintweit on Tibet.

174

LAST ESSAYS.

But, taking it for granted that M. Notovitch is a
gentleman and not a liar, we cannot help thinking
that the Buddhist monks of Ladakh and Tibet must
be wags, who enjoy mystifying inquisitive travellers,
and that M. Notovitch fell far too easy a victim to
their jokes. Possibly, the same excuse may apply to
Madame Blavatsky, who was fully convinced that her
friends, the Mahatmas of Tibet, sent her letters to
Calcutta, not by post, hut through the air, letters
which she showed to her friends, and which were
written, not on Mahatmic paper and with Mahatmic
ink, but on English paper and with English ink.
Be that as it may, M. Notovitch is not the first
traveller in the East to whom Brahmans or Buddhists
have supplied, for a consideration, the information
and even the manuscripts which they were in search
of. Wilford’s case ought to have served as a warning,
but we know it did not serve as a warning to
M. Jacolliot when he published his Bible clans I’Inde
from Sanskrit originals, supplied to him by learned
Pandits at Chandranagor. Madame Blavatsky, if
I remember rightly, never even pretended to have
received Tibetan manuscripts, or, if she had, neither
she nor Mr. Sinnett has ever seen fit to publish either
the text or an English translation of these treasures.

But M. Notovitch, though he did not bring the
manuscripts home, at all events saw them, and not
pretending to a knowledge of Tibetan, had the Tibetan
text translated by an interpreter, and has published
seventy pages of it in French in his Vie inconnue de
Je'sus-Christ. He was evidently prepared for the
discovery of a Life of Christ among the Buddhists.
Similarities between Christianity and Buddhism have

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 175

frequently been pointed out of late, and the idea that
t frist was influenced by Buddhist doctrines has more
than once been put forward by popular writers. The
c 1 cultj has hitherto been to discover any real
historical channel through which Buddhism could have
reached Palestine at the time of Christ. M. Notovitch
thinks that the manuscript which he found at Himis
explains the matter in the simplest way. There is no
doubt as he says, a gap in the life of Christ, say from
■His fifteenth to His twenty-ninth year. During that
very time the new Life found in Tibet asserts that
Christ was in India, that He studied Sanskrit and Pali,
t at He read the Vedas and the Buddhist Canon, and
then returned through Persia to Palestine to preach
the Gospel. If we understand M. Notovitch rightly
this Life of Christ was taken down from the mouths
of some Jewish merchants who came to India imme-
diately after the Crucifixion (p. 237). It was written
down in Pali, the sacred language of Southern Bud-
dhism ; the scrolls were afterwards brought from India
to Nepaul and Makhada ( quaere Magadha) about
A. d. 200 (p. 236), and from Nepaul to Tibet, and are
at present carefully preserved at Lassa. Tibetan
translations of the Pali text are found, he says, in
vanous Buddhist monasteries, and, among the rest,
at Himis. It is these Tibetan manuscripts which were
translated at Himis for M. Notovitch while he was
laid up in the monastery with a broken leg, and it

l8.;VOf Tthese manuscripts that he has taken his new
Life of Jesus Christ and published it in French with
an account of his travels. This volume, which has
already passed through several editions in France is
soon to be translated into English.

176

LAST ESSAYS.

There is a certain plausibility about all this. The
language of Magadha, and of Southern Buddhism in
general, was certainly Pali, and Buddhism reached
Tibet through Nepaul. But M. Notovitch ought to
have been somewhat startled and a little more sceptical
when he was told that the Jewish merchants who
arrived in India immediately after the Crucifixion
knew not only what had happened to Christ in
Palestine, but also what had happened to Jesus, or
Issa, while He spent fifteen years of His life among the
Brahmans and Buddhists in India, learning Sanskrit
and Pali, and studying the Vedas and the Tripkaka.
With all their cleverness the Buddhist monks would
have found it hard to answer the question, how these
Jewish merchants met the very people who had known
Issa as a casual student of Sanskrit and Pali in India
—for India is a large term— and still more, how those
who had known Issa as a simple student in India,
saw at once that He was the same person who had
been put to death under Pontius Pilate. Even His
name was not quite the same. His name in India is
said to have been Issa, very like the Aiabic name
ts&'l Masih, Jesus, the Messiah, while, strange to say,
the name of Pontius Pilate seems to have remained
unchanged in its passage from Hebrew to Pali, and
from Pali to Tibetan. We must remember that part
of Tibet was converted to Mohammedanism. So much
for the difficulty as to the first composition of the Life
of Issa in Pali, the joint work of Jewish merchants
and the personal friends of Christ in India, whethei
in Sind or at Penares. Still greater, however, is the
difficulty of the Tibetan translation of that Life having
been preseived for so many centuries without ever

ALLEGED SOJOURN of CHRIST IN INDIA. 177

being mentioned. If M. Notovitch had been better
cquainted with the Buddhist literature of Tibet and
China he would never have allowed his Buddhist hosts
to tell him that this Life of Jesus was well known in
ibetan literature, though read by the learned only

bInhP°SSpSS+LeXClllent Catal°Sues of manuscripts and
books of the Buddhists in Tibet and in China

A compiete catal°gue of the Tripifeka or the Buddhist
lanon m Chinese has been translated into English bv

a frPi the Kev' BunJiu Nanjio, M.A., and

published by the Clarendon Press in 1883. It contains

no less than 1,663 entries. The Tibetan Catalogue is
bkewiso a most wonderful performance, and has been
published in the Asiatic Researches, vol. xx by
Csorna Korbsi, the famous Hungarian traveller, ’who
spent years in the monasteries of Tibet and became
an excellent Tibetan scholar. It has lately been re-

VGuimet Th- c’ ^ ^ Annales du Musee

?/' JtlS Ca a °gUe 18 not confined to what we
should call sacred or canonical books, it contains
veiythmg that was considered old and classical in
ibetan literature. There are two collections, the
Kandjur and the Tandjur. The Kandjur consists of
108 large volumes, arranged in seven divisions:—

1. Dulva, discipline (Vinaya).

2. Sherch’hin, wisdom (Pra^mparamita).

avfta 2tt’b<>n’ t>W garIa”d °f BuddbaS (Buddha'

4- Kon-tsegs, mountain of treasures (Ratnakftfa)

5- Mdo, or Sutras, aphorisms (Sutranta).

6. Myang-Hdas, or final emancipation (Nirvana).

7. Gyut, Tantra or mysticism (Tantra).

11.

178

LAST ESSAYS.

The Tandjur consists of 225 volumes, and while the
Kandjur is supposed to contain the Word of Buddha,
the Tandjur contains many books on grammar,
philosophy, &c., which, though recognized as part of
the Canon, are in no sense sacred.

In the Tandjur, therefore, if not in the Kandjui,
the story of Issa ought to have its place, and. if
M. Notovitch had asked his Tibetan friends to give
him at least a reference to that part of the Catalogue
where this story might be found, he would at once
have discovered that they were trying to dupe him.
Two things in their account are impossible, or next to
impossible. The first, that the Jews from Palestine
who came to India in about 35 A.D. should have met
the very people who had known Issa when he was a
student at Benares ; the second, that this Sutra of Issa,
composed in the first century of our era, should not have
found a place either in the Kandjur or in the Tandjur.

It might, of course, be said, Why should the
Buddhist monks of Himis have indulged in this
mystification ?— but we know as a fact that Pandits
in India, when hard pressed, have allowed themselves
the same liberty with such men as Wilford and
Jacolliot ; why should not the Buddhist monks of
Himis have done the same for M. Notovitch, who was
determined to find a Life of Jesus Christ in Tibet?
If this explanation, the only one I can think of,
be rejected, nothing would remain but to accuse
M. Notovitch, not simply of a mauvake plaisanterie,
but of a disgraceful fraud ; and that seems a sti ong
measure to adopt towards a gentleman who represents
himself as on friendly terms with Cardinal Rotelh,
M. Jules Simon, and E. Henan.

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 179

And lieie I must say that if there is anything that
HHght cause misgivings in our mind as toM. Notovitch’s
trustworthiness, it is the way in which he speaks of
is friends. When a cardinal at Rome dissuades him
from publishing his book, and also kindly offers to
assist him, he hints that this was simply a bribe, and
that the cardinal wished to suppress the book. Why
should he ? If the story of Issa were historically true,
it would remove many difficulties. It would show
once for all that Jesus was a real and historical
character. The teaching ascribed to him in Tibet is
inuch the same as what is found in the Gospels, and
if there are some differences, if more particularly the
miraculous element is almost entirely absent, a cardinal
o he Roman Catholic Church would always have the
ra ltion of the Church to rest on, and would probably
have been most grateful for the solid historical frame-
work supplied by the Tibetan Life.

M. Notovitch is equally uncharitable in imputing
motives to the late M. Renan, who seems to have
leceived him most kindly, and to have offered to
submit his discovery to the Academy. M. Notovitch
says that be never called on Renan again, but actually
waited for his death, because he was sure that M. Renan
would have secured the best part of the credit for
himself leaving to M. Notovitch nothing but the good
luck of having discovered the Tibetan manuscript at
nimis. Whatever else Renan was, he certainly was

S'* ffIous> and he would have acted towards
AL. JN otovitch in the same spirit with which he welcomed
e discoveries which Hamdy Bey lately made in
byna on the very ground which had been explored
before by Renan himself. Many travellers who discover

180

LAST ESSAYS.

manuscripts, or inscriptions, or antiquities, are too apt
to forget how much they owe to good luck and to the
spades of their labourers, and that, though a man who
disinters a buried city may be congratulated on his
devotion and courage and perseverance, he does not
thereby become a scholar or antiquary. The name of
the discoverer of the Rosetta stone is almost forgotten,
the name of the decipherer will be remembered for
ever.

The worst treatment, hpwever, is meted out to the
missionaries in Tibet. It seems that they have written
to say that M. Notovitch had never broken his leg 01
been nursed in the monastery of Himis. This is a
point that can easily be cleared up, for there are at
the present moment a number of English officers
at Leh, and there is the doctor who either did or did
not set the traveller’s leg. M. Notovitch hints that
the Moravian missionaries at Leh are distrusted by
the people, and that the monks would never have
shown them the manuscript containing the Life of
Issa. Again I say, why not '? If Issa was Jesus Christ,
either the Buddhist monks and the Moravian mission-
aries would have seen that they both believed in the
same teacher, or they might have thought that this
new Life of Issa was even less exposed to objections
than the Gospel-story. But the worst comes at the
end. 4 How can I tell,’ he writes, 4 that these mission-
aries have not themselves taken away the documents
of which I saw the copies at the Himis monastery 1 ’
But how could they, if the monks never showed them
these manuscripts'? M. Notovitch goes even further.
‘ This is simply a supposition of my own,’ he writes ;
‘but, if it is true, only the copies have been made

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 181

to disappear, and the originals have remained at
as^a. . . . I piopose to start at the end of the present
year for Tibet, in order to find the original documents
having reference to the life of Jesus Christ. I hope to
succeed in this undertaking in spite of the wishes of
e missi°naries, for whom, however, I have never
ceased to profess the profoundest respect.’ Any one
who can hint that these missionaries may have stolen
and suppressed the only historical Life of Christ which
is known to exist, and nevertheless express the pro-
foundest respect for them, must not be surprised if
the missionaries and their friends retaliate in the same
spmfi We still prefer to suppose that M. Notovitch
hke Lieutenant Wilford, like M. Jacolliot, like Madame
Blavatsky and Mr. Sinnett, was duped. It is pleasanter
to believe that Buddhist monks can at times be wags
than that M. Notovitch was a rogue.

All this, no doubt, is very sad. How long have we
wished for a real historical Life of Christ without the
legendary halo, written, not by one of His disciples,
jut by an independent eye-witness who had seen and
heard Christ during the three years of His active life
and who had witnessed the Crucifixion and whatever
happened afterwards ! And now, when we seemed to
have found such a Life, written by an eye-witness of
His death, and free as yet from any miraculous accre-
tions, it turns out to be an invention of a Buddhist
monk at Hums, or, as others would have it, a fraud
committed by an enterprising traveller and a bold
French publisher. We must not lose patience. In
these days of unexpected discoveries in Egypt and
elsewhere, everything is possible. There is now at
Vienna a fragment of the Gospel-story more ancient

182

LAST ESSAYS.

than the text of St. Mark. Other things may follow.
Only let us hope that if such a Life were ever to be
discovered, the attitude of Christian theologians would
not be like that which M. Notovitch suspects on the
part of an Italian cardinal or of the. Moravian mis-
sionaries at Himis, but that the historical Christ,
though different from the Christ of the Gospels, would
be welcomed by all who can believe in His teaching,
even without the help of miracles.

It is curious that at the very time I was wiiting
this paper I received a letter from an English la*!}
dated Leh, Ladakh, June 29, 1894. She writes

< We left Leh two days ago, having enjoyed our stay there so
much ! There had been only one English lady here for over three
years. Two German ladies live there, missionaries, a Mr. and
Mrs. Weber, a girl, and another English missionary. They have
only twenty Christians, though it has been a mission-station for
seven years. We saw a polo match which was played down the
principal street. Yesterday we were at the great Himis monastery,
the largest Buddhist monastery up here— 800 Lamas. Did you
hear of a Russian who could not gain admittance to the monastery
in any way, but at last broke his leg outside, and was taken in !
His object was to copy a Buddhist Life of Christ which is there.
Ho says he got it, and has published it since in French. There is
not a single word of truth in the whole story ! There lias been no
Russian there. No one has been taken into the Seminary for t le
past fifty years with a broken leg ! There is no Life of Christ there
at all ! It is dawning on me that people who in England profess
to have been living in Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and to
have learnt there the mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism are frauds.
The monasteries one and all are the most filthy places. I have
asked many travellers whom I have met, and they all tell the
same story They acknowledge that perhaps at the Lama University
at Lassa it may be better, but no Englishman is allowed there.
Captain Bower (the discoverer of the famous Bower MS.) did his
very best to get there, but failed. ... We are roughing it now very
much. I have not tasted bread for five weeks, and shall not foi
two months more. We have “ chappaties” instead. We rarely get
any butter. We carry a little tinned butter, but it is too precious

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 183

to eat much of. It was a great luxury to get some linen washed
in Leh, though they did starch the sheets. We are just starting
on our 500 miles’ march to Simla. We hear that one pass is not
open yet, about which we are very anxious. We have one pass of
18 000 feet to cross, and we shall be 13,000 feet high for over
a fortnight ; but I hope that by the time you get this we shall be
down in beautiful Kulu, only one month from Simla ! ’

THE CHIEF LAMA OF HIMIS ON THE
ALLEGED ‘UNKNOWN LIFE OF
CHRIST.’

By Me. J. Aechibald Douglas1.

IT is difficult for any one resident in India to esti-
mate accurately the importance of new departures
in European literature, and to gauge the degree of
acceptance accorded to a fresh literary discovery such
as that which M. Notovitch claims to have made. A
revelation of so surprising a nature could not, how-
ever, have failed to excite keen interest, not only
among theologians and the religious public generally,
but also among all who wish to acquire additional
information respecting ancient religious systems and
civilizations.

Under these circumstances it was not surprising
to find in the October (1894) number of this Review
an article from the able pen of Professor Max Muller
dealing with the Russian traveller’s marvellous ‘ find.’
I confess that, not having at the time had the
pleasure of reading the book which forms the subject
of this article, it seemed to me that the learned
Oxford professor was disposed to treat the discoverer
somewhat harshly, in holding up the Unknown Life

1 Nineteenth Century, April, 1896.

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 185

of Christ as a literary forgery, on evidence which did
not then appear conclusive.

A caieful perusal of the book made a less favourable
impiession of the genuineness of the discovery therein
described ; but my faith in M. Notovitch was some-
what revived by the bold reply which that gentleman
made to his critics, to the effect that he is ‘ neither
a “hoaxer” nor a “ forger,5” and that he is about to
undertake a fresh journey to Tibet to prove the truth
of his story.

In the light of subsequent investigations I am bound
to. say that the chief interest which attaches, in my
mind, to M. Notovitch's daring defence of his book
is the fact that that defence appeared immediately
before the publication of an English translation of
his work.

I was resident in Madras during the whole of last
year, and did not expect to have an opportunity
of investigating the facts respecting the Unknown
Life of Christ at so early a date. Removing to the
North-West Provinces in the early part of the present
year, I found that it would be practicable during the
three months of the University vacation to travel
through Kashmir to Ladakh, following the route
taken by M. Notovitch, and to spend sufficient time
at the monastery at Himis to learn the truth on this
important question. . I may here mention, en passant,
t. at I did not find it necessary to break even a little
finger, much less a leg, in order to gain admittance
to Hums Monastery, where I am now staying for
a few days, enjoying the kind hospitality of the
Chief Lama (or Abbot), the same gentleman who
according to M. Notovitch, nursed him so kindly

186

LAST ESSAYS.

under the painful circumstances connected with his
memorable visit.

During his journey up the Sind Valley M. Notovitch
was beset on all sides by f panthers, tigers, leopards,
black bears, wolves, and jackals.’ A panther ate one
of his coolies near the village of Ha'iena before his
very eyes, and black bears blocked his path in an
aggressive manner. Some of the old inhabitants of
Ha'iena told me that they had never seen or heard
of a panther or tiger in the neighbourhood, and they
had never heard of any coolie, travelling with a Euro-
pean sahib, who had lost his life in the way described.
They were sure that such an event had not happened
within the last ten years. I was informed by a
gentleman of large experience in big-game shooting
in Kashmir that such an experience as that of
M. Notovitch was quite unprecedented, even in 1887,
within thirty miles of the capital of Kashmir.

During my journey up the Sind Valley the only
wild animal I saw was a red bear of such retiring
disposition that I could not get near enough for
a shot.

In Ladakh I was so fortunate as to bag an ibex
with thirty-eight-inch horns, called somewhat con-
temptuously by the Russian author c wild goats ; but
it is not fair to the Ladakhis to assert, as M. Notovitch
does, that the pursuit of this animal is the principal
occupation of the men of the country. Ibex are no^
so scarce near the Leh- Srinagar road that it is fortunate
that this is not the case. M. Notovitch pursued his
path undeterred by trifling discouragements, ‘ prepared,
as he tells us, ‘for the discovery of a Life of Christ
among the Buddhists.’

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 187

In justice to the imaginative author I feel bound to
say that I have no evidence that M. Notovitch has not
visited Himis Monastery. On the contrary, the Chief
Lama, or Chagzot, of Himis does distinctly remember
that several European gentlemen visited the monastery
m the years 1887 and 1888.

I do not attach much importance to the venerable
Lama s declaration, before the Commissioner of Ladakh,
to the effect that no Russian gentleman visited the
monastery in the years named, because I have reason
to believe that the Lama was not aware at the time
of the appearance of a person of Russian nationality,
and on being shown the photograph of M. Notovitch
confesses that he might have mistaken him for an
‘ English sahib.’ It appears certain that this venerable
abbot could not distinguish at a glance between a
Russian and other European or American traveller.

The declaration of the ‘ English lady at Leh,’ and of
the British officers, mentioned by Professor Max Muller,
was probably founded on the fact that no such name
as Notovitch occurs in the list of European travellers
kept at the dak bungalow in Leh, where M. Notovitch
says that he resided during his stay in that place.
Careful inquiries have elicited the fact that a Russian
gentleman named Notovitch was treated by the
medical officer of Leh Hospital, Dr. Karl Marks, when
suffering not from a broken leg, but from the less
romantic but hardly less painful complaint— toothache.

I will now call attention to several leading state-
ments in M. Notovitch’s book, all of which will be
found to be definitely contradicted in the document
signed by the Chief Superior of Himis Monastery and
sealed with his official seal. This statement I have

188

LAST ESSAYS.

sent to Professor Max Muller for inspection, together
with the subjoined declaration of Mr. Joldan, an
educated Tibetan gentleman, to whose able assistance
I am deeply indebted.

A more patient and painstaking interpreter could
not be found, nor one better fitted for the task.

The extracts from M. Notovitch’s book were slowly
translated to the Lama, and were thoroughly under-
stood by him. The questions and answers were fully
discussed at two lengthy interviews before being
prepared as a document for signature, and when so
prepared were carefully translated again to the Lama
by Mr. Joldan, and discussed by him with that
gentleman, and with a venerable monk who appeared
to act as the Lama’s private secretary.

I may here say that I have the fullest confidence in
the veracity and honesty of this old and respected
Chief Lama, who appears to be held in the highest
esteem, not only among Buddhists, but by all Europeans
who have made his acquaintance. As he says, he has
nothing whatever to gain by the concealment of facts,
or by any departure from the truth.

His indignation at the manner in which he has been
travestied by the ingenious author was of far too
genuine a character to be feigned, and I was much
interested when, in our final interview, he asked me
if in Europe there existed no means of punishing a
person who told such untruths. I could only reply
that literary honesty is taken for granted to such an
extent in Europe, that literary forgery of the nature
committed by M. Notovitch could not, I believed, be
punished by our criminal law.

With reference to M. Notovitch’s declaration that

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 189

he is going to Himis to verify the statements made in
his book, I would take the liberty of earnestly advising
him, if he does so, to disguise himself at least as
eftoctually as on the occasion of his former visit.
M Notovitch will not find himself popular at Himis,
and might not gain admittance, even on the pretext
of having another broken leg.

The following extracts have been carefully selected
trom the Unknown Life of Christ, and are such that
on their truth or falsehood may be said to depend the
value of M. Notovitch’s story.

After describing at length the details of a dramatic
performance, said to have been witnessed in the court-
yard of Himis Monastery, M. Notovitch writes

with nT h f TSed he courtyard and tended a staircase lined

Z h ErrelS’ W! passed thr0Ugh two rooms encumbered
With idols and came out upon the terrace, where I seated myself

Te,,<,r‘ble 1*“a’ 'Vt“e 6?eS "ilh

(This extract is important as bearing on the question
of identification ; see Answers i and 3 of the Lama’s
statement: and it may here be remarked that the
author’s account of the approach to the Chief Lama’s
reception room and balcony is accurate.) Then follows
a long resume of a conversation on religious matters,
in the course of which the abbot is said to have made
the following observations amongst others

‘ We, Pave * diking example of this (Nature-worship) in the
"°4"hipped 8n""*13’ “1 »“>■>“. ‘l*e

the^letlfTbTr8’ S°fking the way which should lead them to
the feet of the Creator, turned their eyes to the stars’ (p. uc)

Perhaps the people of Israel have demonstrated ina more flagrant
manner than any other, man’s lore for the concrete ’ (p

The name of Issa is held in great respect by the Buddhists, but

190

LAST ESSAYS.

little is known about him save by the Chief Lamas who have read
the scrolls relating to his life ’ (p. 120).

‘The documents brought from India to Nepal, and from Nepal to
Tibet, concerning Issa’s existence, are written in the Pali language,
and are now in Lassa ; but a copy in our language — that is, the
Tibetan — exists in this convent’ (p. 123).

‘ Two days later I sent by a messenger to the Chief Lama a present
comprising an alarum, a watch, and a thermometer’ (p. 125).

We will now pass on to the description given by
the author of his re-entry into the monastery with
a broken leg : —

‘ I was carried with great care to the best of their chambers, and
placed on a bed of soft materials, near to which stood a prayer-
wheel. All this took place under the immediate surveillance of
the Superior, who affectionately pressed the hand I offered him in
gratitude for his kindness ’ (p. 127).

‘ While a youth of the convent kept in motion the prayer-wheel
near my bed, the venerable Superior entertained me with endless
stories, constantly taking my alarum and watch from their cases, and
putting to me questions as to their uses, and the way they should
be worked. At last, acceding to my earnest entreaties, he ended
by bringing me two large bound volumes, with leaves yellowed by
time, and from them he read to me, in the Tibetan language, the
biography of Issa, which I carefully noted in my carnet de voyage, as
my interpreter translated what he said ’ (p. 128).

This last extract is, in a sense, the most important
of all, as will be seen when it is compared with
Answers 3, 4, and 5 in the statement of the Chief
Superior of Himis Monastery. That statement I now
append. The original is in the hands of Professor
Max Muller, as I have said, as also is the appended
declaration of Mr. Joldan, of Leh.

The statement of the Lama, if true— and there is
every reason to believe it to be so — disposes once and
for ever of M. Notovitch’s claim to have discovered
a Life of Issa among the Buddhists of Ladakh. My
questions to the Lama were framed briefly, and with

ALLEGED SOJOUEN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 191

as much simplicity as possible, so that there might
be no room for any mistake or doubt respecting the
meaning of these questions.

My interpreter, Mr. Joldan, tells me that he was
most careful to translate the Lama’s answers verbally
and literally, to avoid all possible misapprehension.
The statement is as follows : —

Question x. You are the Chief Lama (or Abbot) of
Himis Monastery?

Answer i. Yes.

Question 2. For how long have you acted continu-
ously in that capacity?

Answer 2. For fifteen years.

Question 3. Have you or any of the Buddhis
monks in this monastery ever seen here a European
with an injured leg ?

Answer 3. No, not during the last fifteen years. If
any sahib suffering from serious injury had stayed in
this monastery it would have been my duty to report
the matter to the Wazir of Leh. I have never had
occasion to do so.

Question 4. Have you or any of your monks ever
shown any Life of Issa to any sahib, and allowed him
to copy and translate the same ?

Answer 4. There is no such book in the monastery,
and during my term of office no sahib has been
allowed to copy or translate any of the manuscripts
in the monastery.

Question 5. Are you aware of the existence of any
book in any of the Buddhist monasteries of Tibet
bearing on the life of Issa?

Answer 5. I have been for forty-two years a Lama,
and am well acquainted with all the well-known

192

LAST ESSAYS.

Buddhist books and manuscripts, and I have never-
heard of one which mentions the name of Issa, and
it is my firm and honest belief that none such exists.
I have inquired of our principal Lamas in other
monasteries of Tibet, and they are not acquainted
with any books or manuscripts which mention the
name of Issa.

Question 6. M. Nicolas Notovitch, a Russian gentle-
man who visited your monastery between seven and
eight years ago, states that you discussed with him
the religions of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and
the people of Israel.

Answer 6. I know nothing whatever about the
Egyptians, Assyrians, and the people of Israel, and
do not know anything of their religions what-
soever. I have never mentioned these people to any
sahib.

[I was reading M. Notovitch’s book to the Lama
at the time, and he burst out with, ‘ Sun, sun, sun,
manna mi dug !’ which is Tibetan for ‘ Lies, lies, lies,
nothing but lies!’ I have read this to him as part
of the statement which he is to sign— as his deliberate
opinion of M. Notovitch’s book. He appears perfectly

satisfied on the matter. — J. A. D.]

Question 7. Do you know of any Buddhist writings

in the Pali language % .....

Answer 7. I know of no Buddhist writings in the

Pali language ; all the writings here, that I know of,
have been translated from Sanskrit and Hindi into
the Tibetan language.

[From this answer, and other observations of the
Lama, it would appear that he is not acquainted with
the term ‘ Pali.’ — J- A. D.]

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 193

Question 8. Have you received from any sahib
a present of a watch, an alarum, and a thermometer ?

Answer 8. I have never received any such presents
from any sahib. I do not know what a thermometer
is. I am sure that I have not one in my possession.

[This answer was given after a careful explanation
of the nature of the articles in question. — J. A. D.]
Question 9. Do you speak Urdu or English 1
Answer 9. I do not know either Urdu or English.
Question 10. Is the name of Issa held in great
respect by the Buddhists 1

Answer 10. They know nothing even of his name ;
none of the Lamas has ever heard it, save through
missionaries and European sources.

Signed in the Tibetan language by the Chief
Lama of Himis, and sealed with his official
seal.

In the presence
of us

J. Archibald Douglas, Pro-
fessor, Government College,
- Agra, N.-W. P.

Shahmwell Jordan, late
Postmaster of Ladakh.

Himis Monastery, Little Tibet :
June 3, 1895.

(Mr. Joldan’s Declaration.)

This is my declaration : That I acted as interpreter
for Professor Douglas in his interviews with the Chief
Lama of Himis Monastery. I can speak English, and
Tibetan is my native language. The questions and
answers to which the Chief Lama has appended his
II. 0

194

LAST ESSAYS.

seal and signature were thoroughly understood by
him, and I have the fullest confidence in his absolute
veracity.

Shahmwell Joldan

(. Retired Postmaster of Ladakh
under the British Imperial Post Office ).

Leh : June s, 1895.

This statement and declaration appear conclusive,
and they are confirmed by my own inquiries, and by
those made in my presence by the Abbot of Himis
of some of the monks who have been longest resident
in the monastery. There is every reason for be-
lieving that the conversations with the Lamas of
Wokka and Lamayuru originated also in the fertile
brain of M. Notovitch.

Neither of these reverend abbots remembers any-
thing about the Russian traveller, and they know
nothing of the religion of Issa (Christianity), or of
any Buddhist sacred books or writings which mention
his name.

I would here remark that the Lamas of Ladakh are
not a garrulous race, and I have never known them
indulge in high-flown platitudes on any subject.
The casual reader would judge from a perusal of
M. Notovitch’s ‘conversations’ with them, that they
were as much addicted to pompous generalities as the
orators of youthful debating societies. The Lamas
I have met are prepared to answer rational inquiries
courteously. They do so with brevity, and usually
to the point. They confess willingly that their know-
ledge on religious subjects is limited to their own
religion, and that they know nothing whatever of
religious systems unconnected with Tibetan Buddhism.

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 195

They do not read any languages but Sanskrit and
Tibetan, and their conversations with foreigners are
altogether limited to commonplace topics. The Chief
Lama of Himis had never heard of the existence of
the Egj^ptians or of the Assyrians, and his indignation
at M. Notovitch’s statement that he had discussed
their religious beliefs was so real, that he almost
seemed to imagine that M. Notovitch had accused
him of saying something outrageously improper.

The exclusiveness of the Buddhism of Lassa seems
to have instilled into the minds of the Lamaistes an
instinctive shrinking from foreign customs and ideas.

I would call attention especially to the ninth
answer in the Lama’s statement, in which he disclaims
all knowledge of the English and Urdu languages.

The question arises, ‘ Who was M. Notovitch's
interpreter?’ The Tibetans of Ladakh competent to
interpret such a conversation are leading men, cer-
tainly not more than three or four in number. Not
one of them has ever seen M. Notovitch, to bis
knowledge. What does our imaginative author tell
about this detail? On page 35 of the English edition,
we are informed that at the village of Goond (thirty-
six miles from Srinagar) he took a shikari into his
service * who fulfilled the role of interpreter.’ Of all
the extraordinary statements with which this book
abounds, this appears to us the most marvellous.
A Kashmiri shikari is invariably a simple peasant*
whose knowledge of language is limited to his native
toDgue, and a few words of Urdu and English, relating
to the necessities of the road, the camp and sport,
picked up from English sportsmen and their Hindu
attendants.

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LAST ESSAYS.

Even in bis own language no Kashmiri villager
would be likely to be able to express religious and
philosophical ideas such as are contained in the
1 conversations ’ between M. Notovitch and the Lamas.
These ideas are foreign to the Kashmiri mode of
thought, usually limited to what our author would
term ‘ things palpable.’

We will take one or two examples : —

‘ Part of the spirituality of our Lord ’ (p. 33) ;

‘ Essential principles of monotheism. ’ (p. 51);

‘An intermediary between earth and heaven ’ (p. 51) ;

used in the ‘conversation’ with the Abbot of Wokka
on the journey to Leh. The conversations at Himis
abound in even more magnificent expressions : —

‘ Idols which they regarded as neutral to their surroundings ’
(p- n4);

‘The attenuation of the divine principle’ (p. 115) ;

‘The dominion of things palpable ’ (p. 115) ;

‘ A canonical part of Buddhism ’ (p. 1 24) ;

and many others which readers will have no difficulty
in finding.

Few things have amused me more, in connexion
with this inquiry, than the half-annoyed, half-amused
expression of the venerable Lama’s face when Mr.
Joldan, after a careful explanation from me, did his
best to translate into Tibetan, as elegantly as it
deserves, the expression, ‘ the attenuation of the divine
principle.’

Apart, then, altogether from the statement made by
the old abbot, there are ample reasons for doubting
the veracity of M. Notovitch’s narrative.

In my last conversation with the Lama we talked
of the story of the broken leg. He assured me that

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 197

do European gentleman had ever been nursed in the
monastery while suffering from a broken limb, and
then went on to say that no European traveller had
ever during his term of office remained at Himis for
more than three days. The abbot called in several
old monks to confirm this statement, and mentioned
that the hospitality offered by the monastery to
travellers is for one night, and is only extended for
special reasons by his personal invitation, and that
he and his monks would not have forgotten so unusual
a circumstance.

That M. Notovitcli may have injured his leg after
leaving Leh on the road to Srinagar is possible, but
the whole story of the broken leg, in so far as it
relates to Himis Monastery, is neither more nor less
than a fiction.

The Lamaistes of Ladakh are divided into two great
parties : the red monks, or orthodox conservative body ;
and the yellow monks, a reforming nonconformist sect.

On p. 1 19 of the Unknown Life of Christ, the
Lama of Himis, the Chief Superior under the Dalai
Lama of the red or orthodox monks of Ladakh,
describes himself and his fellow monks as ‘ we yellow
monks,’ in one of those wonderful conversations before
alluded to. It would be just as natural for his Grace
the Archbishop of Canterbury, discussing the state of
the English Church with an unsophisticated foreigner,
to describe himself and the whole bench of bishops
as ‘we ministers of the Wesleyan Methodist body.’
The Russian traveller might have remembered the
dark-red robes and the red wallets of the monks who
fill the monastery of Himis, unless it be that the
Russian author is colour-blind, as well as blind to

198

LAST ESSAYS.

a sense of truth. The l'eligious differences of these
two religious bodies are described with an inaccuracy
so marvellous that it might almost seem to be
intentional.

Regarded, then, in the light of a work of the
imagination, M. Notovitch’s book fails to please,
because it does not present that most fascinating
feature of fiction, a close semblance of probability.

And yet, if I am rightly informed, the French
version has gone through eleven editions ; so M.
Notovitch’s effort of imagination has found, doubt-
less, a substantial reward. In face of the evidence
adduced, we must reject the theory generously put
forward by Professor Max Muller, that M. Notovitch
was the victim of a cunning ‘ hoax ’ on the part of the
Buddhist monks of Himis.

I do not believe that the venerable monk who
presides over Himis Monastery would have consented
to the practice of such a deception, and I do not think
that any of the monks are capable of carrying out
such a deception successfully. The departures from
truth on other points which can be proved against
M. Notovitch render such a solution highly im-
probable.

The preface which is attached to the English edition
under the form of a letter ‘ To the Publishers ’ is a bold
defence of the truth of M. Notovitch’s story, but it does
not contain a single additional argument in favour of
the authenticity of the Life of Issci.

A work of brilliant imagination is entitled to
respect when it confesses itself as such, but when
it is boldly and solemnly asserted again and again
to be truth and fact, it is rightly designated by

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 199

a harsher term. The Life of Issa is not a simple
biography. Such a publication, though a literary
forgery, might be considered comparatively harmless.
This Life of Issa contains two very striking departures
from Christian revelation, as accepted by the vast
majority of those who confess the faith of Christ.
It practically denies the working of miracles, and it
also gives a definite denial to the resurrection of Jesus-
To the first of these denials is given no less authority
than the words of our Lord, while the second more
important article of faith is explained away very
much to the discredit of the Apostles of the Early
Church. M. Notovitch must remain, therefore, under
the burden of what will be in the eyes of many people
a more serious charge than literary forgery and per-
sistent untruthfulness. He has attempted wilfully to
pervert Christian truth, and has endeavoured to invest
that perversion with a shield of divine authority.

I am not a religious teacher, and, great as is my
respect for Christian missionaries, I cannot profess
any enthusiastic sympathy with their methods and
immediate aims. M. Notovitch cannot therefore
charge me with 5 missionary prejudice ’ or ‘obstinate
sectarianism.’

But, in the name of common honesty, what must
be said of M. Notovitch’s statement, that his version
of the Life of Issa ‘ has many more chances of being
conformable to the truth than the accounts of the
evangelists, the composition of which, effected at
different epochs, and at a time ulterior to the events,
may have contributed in a large measure to distort
the facts and to alter their sense.’

Another daring departure from the New Testament

200

LAST ESSAYS.

account is that the blame of Christ’s crucifixion is cast
on the Roman governor Pilate, who is represented as
descending to the suborning of false witnesses to
excuse the unjust condemnation of Jesus.

The Jewish chief priests and people are represented
as deeply attached to the great Preacher, whom they
regarded as a possible deliverer from Roman tyranny,
and as endeavouring to save Him from the tyrannical
injustice of Pilate. This remarkable perversion of the
received account has led several people to ask if
the author of the Unknown Life of Christ is of Jewish
extraction. Such inquiries as I have been able to
make are not, however, in favour of such a supposition.

In many respects it may be said that this c Gospel
according to M. Notovitch ’ bears a resemblance to the
Vie de Jesus by Renan, to whom the Russian author
states that he showed his MSS.

We believe, nevertheless, that the great French
autlior possessed too much perspicacity to be deceived
by the ‘ discovery,’ and too much honesty to accept
support of his views from such a dubious quarter.

The general question as to the probability of the
existence of any Life of Issa among the Buddhist
MSS. in the monasteries of Tibet has been already
so ably dealt with by so great an authority on these
matters as Professor Max Muller, that I feel it would
be presumptuous on my part to attempt to deal with
a subject in which I am but slightly versed. I will
therefore content myself by saying that the state-
ments of the Lama of Himis, and conversations with
other Lamas, entirely bear out Professor Max Muller’s
contention that no such Life of Issa exists in Tibet.

In conclusion, I would refer to two items of the

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 201

Russian author’s defence of his work. The first is
that in which he boldly invites his detractors to visit
Hinds, and there ascertain the truth or falsehood ol
his story ; the second, that passage in which he
requests his critics ‘ to restrict themselves to this
simple question : Did those passages exist in the
monastery of Himis, and have I faithfully reproduced
their substance ? ’

Otherwise he informs the world in general no one
has any ‘ honest ’ right to criticize his discovery.
I have visited Himis, and have endeavoured by
patient and impartial inquiry to find out the truth
respecting M. Notovitch’s remarkable story, with the
result that, while I have not found one single fact
to support his statements, all the weight of evidence
goes to disprove them beyond all shadow of doubt.
It is certain that no such passages as M. Notovitch
pretends to have translated exist in the monastery
of Himis, and therefore it is impossible that he could
have ‘ faithfully reproduced ’ the same.

The general accuracy of my statements respecting
my interviews with the Lama of Himis can further
be borne out by reference to Captain Chenevix Trench,
British Commissioner of Ladakh *, who is due to visit
Himis about the end of the present month, and who
has expressed to me his intention of discussing the
subject with the Chief Lama.

Before concluding, I desire to acknowledge my
sense of obligation to the Wazir of Leh, to the Chief
Lama and monks of Himis Monastery, to my excellent
interpreter, and to other kind friends in Ladakh, not
only for the able assistance which they afforded
1 This paper was written at Himis in June, 1895.

202

LAST ESSAYS.

to me in my investigations, but also for the unfailing
courtesy and kind hospitality which rendered so en-
joyable my visit to Ladakh.

POSTSCRIPT
By F. M. M.1

Although I was convinced that the story told by
M. Notovitch in his Vie inconnue cle Jesus-Christ was
pure fiction, I thought it fair to give him the benefit
of a doubt, and to suggest that he might possibly
have been hoaxed by Buddhist priests from whom
he professed to have gathered his information about
Issa, i. e. Jesus. (Isa is the name for Jesus used by
Mohammedans.) Such things have happened before.
Inquisitive travellers have been supplied with the
exact information which they wanted by Mahatmas
and other religious authorities, whether in Tibet or
India, or even among Zulus and Red Indians. It
seemed a long cry to Leh in Ladakh, and in throwing
out in an English review this hint that M. Notovitch
might have been hoaxed, I did not think that the
Buddhist priests in the monastery of Himis, in Little
Tibet, might be offended by my remarks. After
having read, however, the foregoing article by Mr.
Douglas, I feel bound most humbly to apologize to
the excellent Lamas of that monastery for having
thought them capable of such frivolity. After the com-
plete refutation, or, I should rather say, annihilation,

1 Nineteenth Century, August, 1896.

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA 203

of M. Notovitch by Mr. Douglas, there does not
seem to be any further necessity — nay, any excuse
for trying to spare the feelings of that venturesome
Russian traveller. He was not hoaxed, but he tried
to hoax us. Mr. Douglas has sent me the original
papers, containing the depositions of the Chief Priest
of the monastery of Himis and of his interpreter, and
I gladly testify that they entirely agree with the
extracts given in the article, and are signed and
sealed by the Chief Lama and by Mr. Joldan, formerly
Postmaster of Ladakh, who acted as interpreter be-
tween the priests and Mr. Douglas. The papers are
dated Himis Monastery, Little Tibet, June 3, 1&95-
I ought perhaps to add that I cannot claim any
particular merit in having proved the Vie incownue
de Jesus-Christ— that is, the Life of Christ taken from
MSS. in the monasteries of Tibet — to be a mere
fiction. I doubt whether any Sanskrit or Pali scholar,
in fact any serious student of Buddhism, was taken
in by M. Notovitch. One might as well look for the
waters of Jordan in the Brahmaputra as for a Life of
Christ in Tibet.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE
By Mr. J. A. Douglas.

Five and a half years have elapsed since the fore-
croing paper was written in the little wood-panelled
guest-chamber of Himis Monastery in Western Tibet.
The monastery and adjacent settlement are built
on the western side of a rocky pass which climbs

204

LAST ESSAYS.

upwards to the eternal snows. The pass above the
Buddhist settlement is the haunt of numerous ibexi
which are tamer than the rest of their kind ; and higher
up I saw a snow leopard, a rare animal even in this
trans-Himalayan region. At the foot of the Himis
valley flow the head -waters of the mighty Indus,
which, after a roundabout route by way of the
Chitral border, sweeps through the plains of the
Punjab and the hot, low-lying country of Sind into
the Indian Ocean. Remarkable and weird as are
the surroundings of this great centre of Lamaism,
or Western Buddhism, the interior of the Himis
Monastery is still more fascinating on account of its
dissimilarity to anything that the European who has
not previously visited a Buddhist country has ever
seen before. The few days that I spent at, and in
the neighbourhood of Himis, were among the most
interesting of my life hitherto, and even now it
sometimes seems like a visit to another planet — as
a journey to Mars, for instance, in response to an
invitation forwarded by Dr. Nikola Tesla’s wireless
mega-telephone. The marvels of the Buddhist temple,
its strange points of resemblance to a Roman Catholic
cathedral of Southern Europe, the wonderful pictures
and carvings, and the grotesque images occupied my
attention very fully. There was one terribly graphic
picture of the horrible tortures of the damned, which
impressed itself upon my mind on account of the
fiendish ingenuity of the conceptions. The huge
yellow, savage dogs, chained up near the temple,
were in keeping with their surroundings, though
I succeeded, after repeated appeals to the appetite
of one of these Tibetan hounds, in making friends

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 205

with him to the extent of allowing himself to be
stroked. Even then there was something uncanny
about it, for this animal did not express his fellow
feeling by wagging his tail, as any ordinary canine
would have done, but purred like a cat, or rather
like a dozen cats in chorus.

In fact, there were so many interesting things to
occupy my attention that I deferred the duty of
chronicling the results of my investigations to the
last evening of my stay.

Much rubbish has been written by travellers
regarding the exclusiveness and hostility of Buddhist
Lamas. I saw none of it ; on the contrary, I was
received everywhere with quiet, gentle courtesy. It
was understood that I had come on a somewhat
important mission to the Chief Lama, which might
have accounted for mere toleration; but I found more
than that, and from several Lamas met with real
friendliness. This has always been my experience
with the peoples .of Western and Central Asia, that
if an Englishman treats them with unsuspicious and
frank geniality, they are very ready to reciprocate
the feeling, and some are indeed flattered by the
exhibition of friendship on the part of a European.
Perhaps I have been exceptionally lucky. All the
same, I believe that a great deal of the trouble that
arises between Europeans and Orientals in unbeaten
tracks is due to a want of consideration, of common
courtesy, on the part of the former.

There was one young Lama, who seemed to be
a kind of secretary to the Chief Lama, who was
especially helpful and hospitable. He knew a little
Hindustani, and by that means we could hold some

206

LAST ESSAYS.

kind of conversation without the aid of an interpreter,
and he seemed to be better educated from our stand-
point than the older monks. In examining the library
of the monastery, with its MSS. on wooden rollers
and between wooden boards, the intelligence of this
young Tibetan was very helpful to me, and with the
assistance of my interpreter the task of inspection
was rendered easy.

Early in the evening before my departure my
secretary-friend brought into my little chamber a
tankard of ’tchang, or Tibetan beer, a present from
the Chief Lama, which was not altogether unwelcome
after some weeks of enforced total abstinence. ’Tchang;
has a slightly acid flavour, but is not at all un-
palatable, and it is not too much to presume that this
beer is free from arsenical impurities. My visitor
departed after a brief conversation ; and I sat down
at my camp-table to write an account of my investi-
gations. It was in the small hours of the morning
that I finished my labours, and after a few hours’
sleep I dispatched my article to the editor of the
Nineteenth Century, and the signed depositions of
the Lama and of my interpreter, with an explanatory
letter, to my revered friend, Professor Max Muller
at Oxford. These were given to a moon-faced Tibetan
dak-runner to hand to the postal officials at Leh, and
I must confess to grave feelings of anxiety lest they
should fail to reach their destination.

It can hardly be wondered at that I was anxious
to send news to England of the results of my investi-
gations at the earliest possible date, especially as the
proof of the forgery was complete ; but when further
inquiries in Western Tibet produced other striking

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 207

instances of M. Notovitch’s marvellous inventive
powers, I was inclined to regret that I had not
delayed dispatching these packets to Europe.

The good mission-people of Kashmiri and Ladakh,
who first attempted to expose M. Notovitch, did that
Russian adventurer good service by denying that he
had ever visited Leh or Himis at all. There is no
doubt whatever that M. Notovitch spent one night
at Himis, and that ten days later (or within a fortnight
after he had broken his leg, according to his own
account) he walked into the mission dispensary at
Leh, and asked to see Dr. Karl Marks, whom he
informed that he was suffering from toothache. Dr.
Marks made an entry of the date of the visit in his
diary. The Tibetan who engaged some carriers for
M. Notovitch remembers that he left Leh on that
occasion, after two days’ stay, on foot, with the
intention of proceeding to Srinagar by way of Niniu
and Dras. The crushing refutation of the details of
the Russian ‘ discoverer’s ’ story is the clear, straight-
forward statement of that most respectable old
monk, the Chief Lama of Himis, who thoroughly
understood the matter, inquiring most carefully into
the details of the story told by M. Notovitch. He
was naturally most indignant at the misuse of his name
and authority, and at the manner in which Buddhism
had been burlesqued and its teachings travestied.

Still more worthy of condemnation is the injury
which this pretended ‘ Gospel,’ this forged life of
Christ, was designed to inflict on the Christian
religion. It seeks to deny the divinity of Jesus
Christ, the working of miracles, and the story of the
Resurrection (which is described as a piece of de-

208

LAST ESSAYS.

liberate deception on the part of the Apostles), and
thus assails what are regarded by the vast majority
of professing Christians as vital truths of Christianity.
And yet there were a large number of religious people,
in Europe and America, who accepted as genuine this
marvellous ‘ discovery ’ ; and one well-known religious
paper, The Christian, published a discussion as to the
authenticity of this ‘New Gospel,’ as it began to be
called.

In India, M. Notovitch’s publication was welcomed
ecstatically by a certain class of Hindu, as a proof
that the Christian faith was but a corrupt offshoot
of that pure, ancient, original Brahmanism of which
we read so much and really know so little. The
genuine pundits, who are in the habit of mistrusting
nearly all new literature, did not, as a rule, notice
the ‘discovery but the younger generation, who had
received at Indian colleges what is known as an
English education, read of and revelled in it. One
Bengali paper greeted the ‘find ’ as ‘ a clear proof that
Christianity, like Buddhism, is simply an offshoot
of Hinduism, and that Jesus Christ learnt His doc-
trines at the feet of Brahmans.’ Further comment
on the result of the forgery in India is needless. In
justice to these Hindus it may be premised that few,
if any, of them had ever seen the clumsy forgery.
Their impressions of it were derived from reviews
and book notices in European journals, and some of
these were most absurd and ignorant effusions. The
Gospel ‘according to Notovitch’ teems with absurdi-
ties and errors, which is hardly to be wondered at,
as its author was not in any sense an Orientalist,
and failed utterly to catch the keynote of Tibetan

ALLEGED SOJOURN OF CHRIST IN INDIA. 209

Buddhism. The careful examination of the ‘ Gospel ’
which I made after leaving Himis revealed discre-
pancies too numerous to describe here. The conver-
sations of M. Notovitch with the Lamas of other
monasteries may be safely regarded as equally
unreliable and imaginary, as visits to these places
and talks with the superior monks soon convinced
me. The exposure of the Notovitch forgery was
accepted everywhere except in the case of an in-
genious Hindu editor, who regarded my statements
simply as a striking instance of the racial prejudices
of the English against the Russ.’ I had several
letters from people in England and America thanking
me for my work, and acknowledging that they had been
deceived by M. Notovitch’s book; but what repaid
me most for my trouble was Professor Max Muller’s
verdict that I had proved the case to the hilt, and
that M. Notovitch was ‘annihilated.’ In a private
letter Professor Max Muller expressed the opinion
that we should hear no more of M. Notovitch, who
would see that ‘ the game was up,’ so far as the chance
of getting any acceptance for his daring imposture
was concerned. Personally I feel almost grateful to
him, as his forged ‘ Gospel gave me a pretext and
opportunity to visit the Buddhists of Western Tibet,
and to become the guest of the Chief Lama of Himis
Monasteiy an experience well worth many journeys
thiough snowy Himalayan passes, and far greater
privations and hardships than those which I had to
endure between the smiling valley of Kashmir and
the inhospitable and rugged regions of the trans-
Himalayan tableland.

II.

THE KUTHO-DAW1.

IT has been said that through the introduction of
railways, steamships, telegraphs, newspapers, and
International Congresses, our terrestrial globe has
shrunk to half its former size. We can now travel
round the globe in less time than was formerly re-
quired for a journey from one end of Europe to the
other. Within my own recollection, which goes back
now to many years, a journey from Berlin to Paris
or London was looked upon in Germany as a great
event. The adventurous traveller before starting was
expected to pay farewell visits to all his friends and
relations, tears were shed in abundance, and no one
would have started on so perilous an expedition
without making his will and insuring his life.
A journey to Egypt or India or America was an
event discussed in all the papers. W e know from
Goethe what a grand thing it was supposed to be in
his time to travel to Italy and explore its antiquities.
To have travelled to Greece or to Constantinople, to
have seen the Parthenon or St. Sophia, made a man
a celebrity not only in his own native town, but all
over Germany. Now three or four days bring us to
Athens or Constantinople, and a small caique or
a penny steamer takes us across the Bosphorus in
a few minutes, and we are in Asia, on the very spot

1 Nineteenth Century , September, 1S95.

THE KUTHO-DAW.

211

where Xerxes is supposed to have whipped the sea
in his anger. A week takes us to America, a fortnight
to India, and we travel all the time with perfect
comfort and with hardly any effort or danger.

With the same ease, however, with which we travel
to distant countries, people from distant countries are
now beginning to come to us. I have had in my own
study at Oxford, not only Turks, Arabs, Hindus,
Siamese, Japanese, and Chinese, but I received only
the other day a visit from one of the Blackfoot
Indians, the first of that tribe who had ever set foot
on English soil, a most interesting and intelligent
man, who was bewailing to me the fate of his race,
doomed, as he thought, to disappear from the face of
the earth, as if Babylonians and Assyrians, Accadians
and Hittites had not disappeared before. His name
was Strong Buffalo (not Buffalo Bill), and a most
powerful, determined, and sensible man he seemed.
He reminded me of a young Mohawk who also used
to deplore to me the fate of his race. He came to
Oxford many years ago to study medicine. He came
in his war-paint and feathers, but left in his cap and
gown, and is now a practising physician at Toronto.

These visits of strangers from distant lands are
often highly instructive : I extracted some knowledge
of the Mohawk language from Dr. Oronyha Teka.
One is thus brought in contact with some of the
leading spirits all over the world. I have now, or
have had, pupils, friends, and correspondents in India,
Burmah, Siam, Japan, China, Corea, aye, even in the
Polynesian and Melanesian Islands, in South America,
and in several African settlements.

But here surgit amari aliquid. People in these

212

LAST ESSAYS.

happy far-off countries have evidently less to do than
we have, and the number of letters, newspapers,
pamphlets, and books which the Indian post brings
every week to my door is sometimes appalling. It
would be physically impossible to acknowledge, much
less to answer, all these letters and parcels, and
I sometimes feel as if, in England at all events, there
had been a shrinkage not only in space, but also in
time. What used to be an hour is now scarcely half
an hour, and a morning is gone before I have an-
swered half the letters from every part of the world
that lie scattered about on my table. A collection
of the letters asking advice and help from me on the
most heterogeneous and the most heterodox subjects,
all beginning with the well-known phrase, ‘Though
I have not the honour of your personal acquaintance,’
would form a most interesting and amusing volume.
■Still, there is both good and bad in all this. I have
received most useful information and help from some
of my unknown friends, and I trust that the unknown
friends whose letters I have not been able to answer,
whose books and MSS. I have not had time to
examine, will forgive me if only they remember that
the number of those whose personal acquaintance
I have not the honour to possess is very large indeed.

And not only have letters and telegrams drawn the
minds and hearts of men in every part of the world
more closely together, but newspapers and reviews
seem to have changed the world into one large
debating club. If my friends were to see the Oriental
newspapers which I have to read, or at all events
to open and to glance at — I say nothing of German
and French and Italian papers, I only think of the

THE KUTHO-DAW.

213

journals from India, from America, from Japan, and
from the Australian colonies — they would be surprised
to see not only how telegrams are published in the
Eastern papers almost before the time that the events
happen in the West, but how every political question,
every literary publication of any importance, is fully
criticized in Bombay, in Tokio, or in Melbourne, often
far more carefully and conscientiously than in the best
of our own papers.

It is a curious sensation to see one’s book not only
praised, and praised in Oriental fashion, at Benares,
but to receive a slashing criticism from an injured
Buddhist who thinks that I have been unfair to
Buddha, or a withering review from an enraged
bishop who thinks that I have been too fair to him.
Still, as one grows old one learns to bear all this, as
the lotus leaf, to quote an Eastern phrase, is neither
heated by the sun nor wetted by the rain. If in this
way persons interested in literary, political, or philo-
sophical work have been drawn together more and
more closely, if a scholar has now to write and to hold
his own, not only in Europe, but against critics in every
part of the world, this process has culminated in what
are known as International Congresses. Here people
from all countries, of every colour and every creed,
have really the honour of making personal acquaint-
ances, and far be it from me to depreciate the good
that has been done by these meetings. But again,
they consume much valuable time and much valuable
money. Think only of five hundred scholars travel-
ling to England and spending a fortnight in London
devouring science, literature, and a great many other
things besides, and you have, if you reckon a working

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LAST ESSAYS.

day at eight hours, which I believe is now the correct
number, no less than 56,000 hours taken away from
the literary workshops of the world ! If it were all
rest and relaxation it would be different, but, as
a matter of fact, a week or a fortnight of an inter-
national congress is about the hardest work that can
fall to any mortal being in the pursuit of science.

The most celebrated of these international congresses
was no doubt the so-called Parliament of Religions
held at Chicago in 1893. There representatives of all
the religions of the world were gathered together —
Brahmans and Buddhists, Jainas and Parsees, Moham-
medans and Chinese, people from Siam, Japan, China,
and last, not least, Jews and Christians of every
description and denomination. A Roman Catholic
cardinal presided ; the blessing was given one day by
a rabbi, the next by an Anglican bishop, the next by
a Buddhist priest, and last, not least, by an Italian
archbishop ; the Lord’s Prayer was joined in by
hundreds, nay, by thousands who were assembled
there in their gorgeous costumes — in black silk, white
lawn, scarlet brocade, yellow satin, with wonderful
head-gears, golden chains and crosses ; and — what was
the most extraordinary of all — though everybody
spoke up for his own religion, not one unkind word
was said to disturb the perfect harmony of that won-
derful meeting. Such a gathering was unique in the
whole history of the world ; it could not have taken
place at any earlier time ; nay, it may be said to have
given the first practical recognition to the teaching
of St. Peter, that in every nation he that feareth God
and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.

Nor is this first truly Oecumenical Council likely

THE KUTHO-DA.W.

215

to remain without results. Already several of the
religions of the East begin to set their house in order,
try to reform abuses that have crept into their
churches, and challenge comparison with other reli-
gions, Christianity not excepted.

Of course, every religion has its weak points, every
church has its abuses which must be reformed from
time to time, and the followers of other religions are
very quick in finding out these vulnerable points.
But every religion has also its strong points, and it is
far better that they also should be pointed out, and
not the weak points only, and that they should be
held up for the admiration and imitation of other
religions.

If we hold that a religion should be judged by its
fruits, can we wonder that the Mohammedans, yes,
even the unspeakable Turks, should pride themselves
on the fact that their religion has succeeded in stamp-
ing out drunkenness, which no other religion, not even
our own, has been able to achieve, or that the Jainas
should take some credit for never touching animal
food1? I had a Jaina dining with me only a few
weeks ago, and I confess I envied him when he told
me that during the whole of his life he had never
eaten the flesh of animals, not even an egg, because
it contained a genn of life. I do not say that we can
measure the excellence of a religion by these outward
tokens, by the mere keeping the outside of the cup
and the platter clean ; still, suppose that we Christians
were the only total abstainers and vegetarians in the
world, should we not point to this as one of the great
triumphs of our religion ? There can be no doubt
that, for the future, Christians, and particularly

216

LAST ESSAYS.

Christian missionaries, will have to see to the joints
of their armour. You may have heard that not only
the Mohammedans, hut even the Buddhists in Japan,
are going to send their own missionaries all over the
world. There are mosques springing up in England,
and I read of Buddhist temples in Paris and in
America, where thousands go to listen to what is
called the teaching of Buddha. There can be little
doubt, to judge from Indian and Japanese papers,
that these people have studied our Bible, our Old and
New Testaments, far more carefully than we have
their Tripkaka or their Koran.

It was for this very purpose, for the purpose of
enabling missionaries to study the religion of those
whom they wish to convert, that I published a series
of translations of the Sacred Books of the East, which
now amounts to nearly fifty volumes. If governments
send out officers to explore the foi'tresses and to
examine the strategic peculiarities of the frontiers
of their neighbours, would it not be well that mis-
sionaries also, who are to conquer the whole world,
should act as spies, should make themselves acquainted
with the sacred books of other religions, the very
fortresses of those whom they wish, if not to conquer,
yet to convince and to convert?

Much has been written of late of the comparative
merits and defects of the principal religions of man-
kind. Some of the Orientals who attended the
Congress at Chicago have been lecturing before large
audiences in the principal towns of America, and
some of them are lecturing now in England and in
Germany. There has been some skirmishing between
these defenders of the Faith, most of them maintaining

THE KUTHO-DAW.

217

that their religion is as good as any other, some that
it is a great deal better. It would, however, be far
too large and too serious a matter to attempt to
institute here a compai’ison between the sacred books
of the world, and to bring out the strong and the
weak points of each.

I only intend to report on some very slight skir-
mishes that have lately taken place between the
defenders of different religions of the world — skir-
mishes in which, so far as I can judge, little or
nothing -was really at stake, whatever the fortune
of war might have been — and I shall then proceed
to show in the Kutho-dciw a kind of religious strong-
hold which in its way is certainly amazing, but which
after hardly half a century begins already to show
sad signs of decay, as one can see in the photographs
lately sent home from Mandalay.

The skirmishes or reconnoitrings to which I refer
were three, and they referred to matters of very small
importance, nay, to my mind, of no importance at all.
The questions that have been discussed were, (i) the
relative age of the Sacred Books, (2) the number of
followers that each religion may claim, and (3) the
bulk of the sacred texts on which the various religions
of the world profess to be founded.

Some religions have prided themselves on the age
of their sacred books. The Brahmans more particu-
larly represent their Vedas as far more ancient than
any other Bible. Suppose it were so, would that in
any way affect their value or prove their truth ?
I should think quite the contrary. Certainly, in the
age in -which we live, old age carries very little weight
—old institutions are generally treated as old rubbish,

218

LAST ESSAYS.

old men as old fogeys. We might therefore safely
leave to the Brahmans the glory of possessing the
oldest sacred book. They would soon find out that
the walls of fortresses do not grow stronger by old
age, and that books dating so far back as, according
to some authorities, 6000 B.G., according to others
2000 b. c., must needs contain many things, many
forms of thought, many modes of expression, that
have grown not only old, but antiquated, and are
no longer in harmony with the truth as we see it.
Besides, what do we gain if we push back the date
of the Old Testament or of the Veda ever so far?
Are there not the higher critics who tell us that
2000 B. c. and even 4000 b. c. is quite a modern date
compared with the dates of Egyptian and Babylonian
monuments? And are there not still higher critics
who assure us that even that ancient Egyptian and
Babylonian civilization, as represented in hieroglyphic
and cuneiform writings, must be looked upon as quite
modern, and as the last outcome only of a much earlier
and far m-ore primitive civilization or non-civilization
which has to be studied among the Palaeolithic savages
of Tasmania or the Andaman islanders ? We should
gain, therefore, very little by a few thousand years
more or less. If Mr. Tilak, in a very learned work
lately published, claims 6000 B.c. as the very lowest
date of Vedic literature, if Professor Jacobi insists
on 4000 B. c. as the last concession that can be made,
I still keep to the date which I originally claimed
for the Hymns of the Rig-veda, namely, 1200 or
1500 B.C., and I always take care to add that even
this date requires a certain amount of willingness on
the part of historical critics. But even this more

THE KUTHO-DAW.

219

moderate date goes far beyond that of the Old Testa-
ment, whether we accept the conclusions of the higher
or the lower critics, and it seems to me far better to
yield that point and let the Brahmans have the full
credit — if it is any credit — of possessing the oldest,
the most remote, and in consequence the most obscure,
and the most difficult among the sacred books of the
world.

Another equally useless skirmish has been that
about the number of followers which each religion
may claim. Here again two distinctions have to be
made. If we ask for the number of human beings
who have entrusted their souls to one or other of the
sacred books as the safest vessel to carry them across
this life, naturally the number of those who believed
in the Veda, or the Old Testament, or the Buddhist
Tripkaka during all the centuries that had elapsed
before the rise of Christianity or Mohammedanism
must have been much larger than the number of
Christians or Mohammedans. And who could ever
guess what may have been the number of Neolithic
and Palaeolithic believers during the untold ages
since the surface of the earth became cool and
habitable ? Remember that, according to Sir Charles
Lyell, 270,000,000 years must have elapsed since the
Cambrian period, and that traces of human life go
back as far at least as the Post-Pleiocene period.
Every pebble on the seashore may have been one of
their fetishes, every shell we pick up or find petrified
may have been a sacred totem of our primitive
ancestors. From a purely statistical point of view,
we should therefore again have to concede to Buddhists,
to Brahmanists, and still more to those primitive

220

LAST ESSAYS.

troglodyte ancestors of the whole human race, a con-
siderable superiority in numbers ; and we should
probably do it without the least misgivings.

Still, it is strange that the superiority in numbers
which has been claimed for Buddhism above all other
religions seems to have greatly disturbed certain
theologians ; and as the numbers themselves could
not well be disputed, attempts have lately been made
to distinguish between real and purely nominal
Buddhists, particularly in the vast empire of China.
No doubt, millions of people who are classed as
Buddhists in China and Mongolia have no notion of
what Buddhism really is ; they have never read a line
of the TripBaka, and could not pass an examination
even in Olcott’s Short Catechism of Buddhism. Their
Buddhism often consists in no more than their going
to the monastery for medicine, and, if that fails, for
a decent burial. Still, such a distinction between real
and nominal Buddhists is simply impracticable. Are
there not Christians also who have never read a line
of the Bible, and who could not pass an examination
in the Catechism ? It is difficult enough to have any
trustworthy census whatever in so vast a country as
China ; a question whether a man or a woman was
a real or a nominal Buddhist would convey no
meaning at all to the shepherds in the steppes of
Asia, and could elicit no answer, except perhaps
a broad grin. Malte Brun used to say years ago :
‘ If a geographer means to be honest, he has to confess
that there is no more reason for assigning to Asia 500
than 250 millions of inhabitants.’ And though some
progress has no doubt been made since his time, still
Chinese statistics are guess-work and no more.

THE KUTHO-EAW.

221

The worst of it is that some of the authorities
whose statements are repeated over and over again
have guessed with a purpose.

Missionaries, more particularly, are sorely tempted
to guess the number of Buddhists and Mohammedans
as small, that of the Christians, whether Protestant or
Roman Catholic, as large. It is all the more creditable,
therefore, to the Roman Catholic missionary societies
that they should openly admit that, so far as they
know, the number of Buddhists is as yet the largest.
They claim 420,000,000 for Christianity, but allow

423.000. 000 to Buddhism. Of these Christians, how-
ever, they claim 212,000,000 for themselves, and allow
only 208,000,000 to the Reformed Churches, while
the Mohammedans follow very close after with about

200.000. 000. I attach very little value to these

statistics, still less to the conclusions drawn from
them. Truth fortunately is not settled by majorities.
You remember the saying of Frederick Maurice, when
he was told that in his views about eternal punish-
ment he was in a minority, or, what is the same,
unorthodox. ‘ I have often been in a minority,’ he
said, £in this life, and I hope I shall be so in the
next.’

If, therefore, in this second skirmish also we have
been beaten, we have lost nothing. On the contrary,
the fact that Buddhism counts as yet 3,000,000 more
than Christianity may prove an incentive to our
missionaries, nor need the Reformed Churches despair
when by this time it counts only 4,000,000 less than
the unreformed Churches. Here also there are worlds
still to conquer, as the son of Philip used to say.

The third skirmish is even of less practical impor-

222

LAST ESSAYS.

tance, though we shall see that it is interesting from
a purely literary point of view.

The question has frequently been discussed of late,
Which religion possesses the largest Bible ? Most
people would probably argue that the smaller a Bible,
the better for those who have to study, to believe, and
to obey it. But there is hardly a subject, if connected
with religion, on which opposite opinions have not
been held and defended with great ingenuity and
obstinacy.

To count the words even of a book like the Old
Testament is no easy undertaking, but the Rabbis,
who are famous for their patient labours, have not
shrunk from the trouble of counting the words in the
Hebrew text, and they have found out, as Dr. Neubauer
informs me, that the Old Testament in Hebrew con-
tains 593,493 words, 2,728,100 letters, and 23,214
verses. This estimate is not made by taking the
words of one page and multiplying it by the number
of pages — a most uncertain proceeding — but by actual
counting word for word.

These rabbinical labours, however, astounding as
they are, have been surpassed by Christian students.
I regret I cannot find out their names, but I see it
stated that by counting each word in the Authorized
Version of the Old and the New Testaments, they
found out that the number of words of the whole
Bible amounted to 773,692, that of the lettei’s to
3,586,489, and that of the verses to 31,173. If this
is correct — and who would venture either to doubt
or to verify such labours? — the number of words in
the English New Testament would be about 773,692
- 593,493 = 180,199. Here, however, one estimate is

THE KUTHO-DAW.

223

made from Hebrew, the other from English, which
naturally vitiates the calculation.

Much as one may admire such gigantic patience,
the results produced by it are comparatively small.
I shall only mention a few, such as they are. It has
been found out that the eighth verse in the 118th
Psalm forms the centre of the whole Bible ; that the
twenty- first verse of the seventh chapter of Ezra con-
tains all the letters of the English alphabet, except
the letter F ; that the nineteenth chapter of the second
book of Kings is identically the same as the thirty-
seventh chapter of Isaiah ; that the word Lord occurs
1,855 limes, the word reverend but once, and the word
and 46,277 times. This may seem very unprofitable
labour, yet I must plead guilty of having gone through
the same kind of drudgery myself. Before I could
venture to edit the text and the ancient commentary
of the Rig-veda, I had to make an index verborum,
containing every word as many times as it occurred
in this the oldest of all sacred books. The Rig-veda
contains about 10,500 verses and 153,826 words, and
the word and, the Sanskrit cha , occurs, unless I have
added wrongly, which is not impossible, 1,149 times.
I need hardly say that I did not go through all this
drudgery from mere curiosity. It was a dire necessity.
In order to edit and translate a text like that of the
Rig-veda, which had never been edited before, it was
absolutely necessary, as in the case of deciphering an
inscription, to have every passage in which the same
word occurs placed side by side before our eyes, so as
to be able to find out which meaning would suit them
all. Without such an index verborum, Vedic philology
would have been impossible, and I flatter myself that

224

LAST ESSAYS.

this index has served, and will serve for centuries to
come, as the best and most solid foundation for
a scholarlike study of these ancient hymns. I must
not indulge in any more statistics, though I ought to
add that two thousand years ago the native scholars of
India had, like the Rabbis, counted not only the words,
but even the syllables of their Rig-veda, and that they
state the number of syllables to amount to 432,000.
I have to confess again that I have not tried to check
this account. What must strike every one in these
statistical researches is the great amount of repetition
in all the sacred books. Thus, while the number of
words actually occurring in the Old Testament is, as
we saw, 593,493, the number of separate words used
again and again — in fact, the number of words in
a dictionary of the Old Testament — is said to amount
to no more than 5,642, thus showing that, on an
average, every word was used in the Bible one
hundred times. Comparing, then, the principal sacred
books, we find that the Avestic texts, as we now
possess them, are the shortest. They were not so
originally, for we possess two only out of the twenty-
one Nasks of which the Avesta originally consisted.
The total of words in our present text amounts to
73,020. Then follows the Rig-veda, then the New,
and then the Old Testament. I am sorry I have not
been able to find out the exact number of words in the
Koran, though I have little doubt that they too have
been counted. The Koran, as far as the number of
words goes, would probably stand between the Old
and the New Testament.

If now in conclusion we turn to the sacred books
of the Buddhists, we come at last to the Kutho-daiv.

THE KUTHO-DAW.

225

The sacred books of the Buddhists are perfectly
appalling in their bulk. They are called the Triphaka,
the Three Baskets, and were originally written in
Pali, a vernacular form of Sanskrit. They have been
translated into many languages, such as Chinese,
Tibetan, and Mandshu. They have also been written
and published in various alphabets, not only in
Devanagari, but in Singhalese, Burmese, and Siamese
letters. The copy in nineteen volumes lately presented
to the University of Oxford by the King of Siam con-
tains the Pali text written in Siamese letters, but the
language is always the same ; it is the Pali or the
vulgar tongue, as it was supposed to have been spoken
by Buddha himself about 500 b.c. After having
been preserved for centuries by oral tradition, it
was reduced for the first time to writing under King
Vattagamini in 88-76 b.c.1, the time when the truly
literary period of India may be said to begin. But
besides this Pali Canon there is another in Sanskrit,
and there are books in the Sanskrit Canon which are
not to be found in the Pali Canon, and vice versa.

According to a tradition current among the Southern
as well as the Northern Buddhists, the original Canon
consisted of 84,000 books, 83,000 being ascribed to
Buddha himself and 2,000 to his disciples. Book,
however, seems to have meant here no more than
treatise or topic.

But, as a matter of fact, the Pali Canon consists,
according to the Rev. R. Spence Hardy, of 275,250
stanzas, and its commentary of 361,550 stanzas, each
stanza reckoned at thirty-two syllables. This would
give us 8,808,000 syllables for the text, and 11,569,600

1 Dipavansa, xx. p. 21.

II.

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LAST ESSAYS.

syllables for the commentary. This is, of course, an
enormous amount ; the question is only whether the
Rev. R. Spence Hardy and his assistants, who are
responsible for these statements, counted rightly.
Professor Rhys Davids, by taking the average of
words in ten leaves, arrives at much smaller sums,
namely, at 1,752,800 words for the Pali Canon, which
in an English translation, as he says, would amount
to about twice that number, or 3,505,600 words. Even
this would be ample for a Bible ; it would make the
Buddhist Bible nearly five times as large as our own ;
but it seems to me that Spence Hardy s account is
more likely to be correct. Professor Rhys Davids,
by adopting the same plan of reckoning, brings the
number of words in the Bible to about ()oo,ooo.
We found it given as 773,692. But who shall
decide 1

What the bulk of such a work would be, we may
gather from what we know of the bulk of the trans-
lations. There is a complete copy of the Chinese
translation at the India Office in London, also in the
Bodleian, and a catalogue of it, made by a Japanese
pupil of mine, the Rev. Bunyiu Nanjio, brings the
number of separate works in it to 1,662. The Tibetan
translation, which dates from the eighth century,
consists of two collections, commonly called the
Kanjur and Tanjur.

The Kanjur consists of a hundred volumes in folio,
the Tanjur of 225 volumes, each volume weighing
between four and five pounds. This collection, pub-
lished by command of the Emperor of China, sells
for ^630. A copy of it is found at the India Office.
The Buriates, a Mongolian tribe converted to Bud-

THE KUTHO-DAW.

227

dhism, bartered 7,000 oxen for one copy of the Kanjur,
and the same tribe paid 12,000 silver roubles for
a complete copy of both Kanjur and Tanjur.

What must it be to have to believe in 325 volumes
each weighing five pounds, nay, even to read through
such a Bible ! True, the Buddhist Canon is full of
repetitions, but at present we need only think of the
number of volumes, of pages, and of words, whether
repeated or not. It is not easy to realize such a number
as 8,808,000 syllables, but we may try to do so, and
then think of the Kutho-daw, which is a Buddhist
monument near Mandalay in Burma, consisting of
about 700 temples, each containing a slab of white
marble on which the whole of this Buddhist Bible,
the whole of these eight millions of syllables, has been
carefully engraved. The alphabet is Burmese, the
language is Pali, the language supposed to have been
spoken by Buddha. Well may the Buddhists say
that such a Bible on white marble cannot be matched
in the whole world. I am glad it cannot. Think of
the fearful expenditure of labour and money. And
what is the result? A small copy of the New Testa-
ment, which our University Press turns out for a penny
a C0Py, is more useful, has more power for good in
it, quite apart from its intrinsic value, than the whole
of this gigantic structure which no one reads, nay,
which but few people understand. The Kutho-daw
is not an ancient monument. It was erected in 1857
by Mindon-min, the predecessor of King Thebaw, the
last king of Burma. No one seems ever to have
described this marvellous pile, and I confess that unless
my correspondent, Mr. Ferrars, had sent me photographs
of it, I should have found it difficult to believe in

Q 2

228

LAST ESSAYS.

this extraordinary monument of Buddhist piety and
Buddhist folty.

To judge from these photographs, there are about
seven hundred temples, forming together a large
square, with a higher temple in the centre, visible
from far and wide. Each temple contains a slab of
white marble covered with inscriptions, possibly more
than one, if the inscriptions contain, as is maintained,
the complete text of the three Pkakas. Over each
slab there is an ornamental canopy in pagoda form,
which renders photography difficult, but by no means
impossible. Mr. Ferrars, a member of the Burma
Forest Department, is quite ready to undertake the
photographic reproduction of the complete text of
the Tripiiaka, if the Government or some learned
society will bear the small expense that is required.
He has been assured that the text, as engraved on
the marble slabs, was critically revised and edited
by a Royal Commission, consisting of ten learned
men under the presidency of the famous Rahan,
U-Nye-ya. It is stated that three copies of the
same text were prepared at the same time on palm-
leaves, and sent by the king to three European
libraries. What libraries they were I have not been
able to find out.

If a photographic reproduction could be made at
a reasonable price, it would certainly seem desirable,
though, from a specimen sent to me, I am a little
afraid that some of the letters are no longer quite
distinct. The signs of decay are visible all over the
building; the moisture of the climate has begun to
tell, and moss is growing on the walls and cupolas.
What a confirmation of Buddhas teaching that all is

THE KUTHO-DAW.

229

perishable and that all that has been put together will
come apart again !

How much more real good might have been done
if this pious and learned Buddhist king had been
properly advised as to the best way of doing honour
to the memory of Buddha ! Buddhists in many parts
of the world seem very anxious that the nations of
Europe should gain a correct knowledge of the ancient
religion of Buddha. In this they are quite justified.
Some go so far as to send missionaries to convert the
world. This seems rather too sanguine a plan; any-
how, before such attempts are made, it would certainly
be desirable to spread a correct knowledge of Bud-
dhism, and thus to counteract the mischievous mis-
representations of the great sage of Kapilavastu,
scattered broadcast by those who call themselves
esoteric Buddhists. The importance of Buddhist
literature for a comparative study of religions is
now generally recognized, and for philological pur-
poses also a scholarlike knowledge of Pali is of very
great importance.

It is a great pity that at Oxford there should be no
chair of Pali ; and the true admirers of Buddha could
hardly show their admiration in a better way than by
helping to found a lectureship of the Pali language and
literature. The King of Siam has shown his reverence
for the memory of Buddha by helping me to bring
out a series of translations of the sacred books of
the Buddhists. Is there no other admirer of the great
sage to follow this noble example ? Even a gigantic
marble structure like the Kutho-daw crumbles to
pieces, and the inscriptions remain silent in the
wilderness. A learned and painstaking teacher of

230

LAST ESSAYS.

Pali, though he must not expect to gain any converts
to Buddhism at Oxford, would certainly help to
secure to Buddha that position among the wisest
and best men of the world which belongs to him by
right as the recognized guide and teacher of 423
millions of human beings — as a sage whose utterances
even those who belong to another religion may read,
mark, and inwardly digest, with real advantage to
themselves — as one whom a former professor in this
University declared to be ‘ second to One only.’

BUDDHA’S BIRTHPLACE1.

IT is strange to see how in our days the republic
of letters extends its arms farther and farther,
and how the same literary and archaeological questions
are discussed in the journals of Japan, India, France,
England, and Germany, difference of language having
lono- ceased to be a barrier between the scholars of

the principal countries of the civilized world. Hardly
has a question been asked or a problem connected
with oriental literature been started, when answers
pour in from East and West, from North and
South.

Here is the last number of the Hansel Zasshi, a
monthly magazine, published at Tokio in Japan. It
is generally written in English, but from time to time
it contains articles in Russian and German also. The
last number contains one article in French, or rather
a speech delivered in Fx-ench before a learned society
at Tokio by a distinguished French savant, M. Sylvain
Levy. And what is the subject on which he addi'essed
his Japanese audience? It is a pilgrimage which he
performed to the newly discovered birthplace of
Buddha, Kapilavastu. In the sixth centux-y B. c. this
Kapilavastu was the l-esidence of the Sakya princes
and of Buddha’s father, as we are informed again and

1 Blackwood’s Magazine, December, 1 898.

232

LAST ESSAYS.

again in the sacred canon of the Buddhists These
Sakya princes were what we should now call small
Indian Rajahs, and the father of Buddha was the head
of the family, and ruler of their principality. But
though the name of the capital, Kapilavastu, and the
name of a large park belonging to it, Lumbini, were
well known to all students of Buddhism, the real
situation of that once famous town had hitherto
baffled all attempts at identification. General Sir
Alex. Cunningham, a high authority on Indian
archaeology, had indeed placed Kapilavastu near the
village of Bhuila in the Basti district of the North-
Western Provinces ; but this view was clearly wrong,
and has by this time been given up by all competent
authorities. The only scholar who long ago had fixed
on the right locality was Vivien de St. Martin, who
in his Memoire Ancilytique, appended to Stan. Julien’s
translation of Hiouen-thsang, placed it rightly between
Gorakhpur and the mountains of Nepal.

Little attention, however, was paid to this geo-
graphical conjecture, which dates from 1858, and it
would perhaps have been impossible to place it
altogether beyond the reach of doubt without a
renewed examination of the Voyages des Pelevins
Bouddhistes — that is, the descriptions of the pil-
grimages performed by Chinese Buddhists, such as
Fa-hian in the fifth, and Hiouen-thsang in the seventh
century. These two Chinese Buddhists, and many
others like them, travelled from China to India, which
was their Holy Land, and to Kapilavastu, which was
their Jerusalem. But even with the help of the
minute details which these Buddhist pilgrims have
left us of all they did and saw on their journeys, the

buddha’s birthplace.

233

site of Kapilavastu, the chief goal of their perilous
travels, would probably have long remained uncertain
but for the ingenuity of Surgeon-Major Waddell.

I may seem wrong in speaking so positively on this
point, for there has been, and there still is, a heated
controversy going on, and there are some very com-
petent authorities who claim the merit of having
settled the real site of Kapilavastu, not for Major
Waddell, or even for Vivien de St. Martin, but exclu-
sively for Dr. Fiihrer. To me it seems a case very
like the discovery of Uranus. Professor Adams pointed
out where that planet must be, and would be sure to
be found. Leverrier took the telescope and found it.
In much the same way Major Waddell, in the Journal
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1896, p. 275, expressed
his conviction that Kapilavastu would be found not
very far from a pillar discovered in 1893 in the Nepal
Terai by a Nepalese officer, name unknown. The
Major recognized it at once as one of the many pillars
erected by King Asoka (third century B.c.) when that
famous Buddhist sovereign visited the sacred places
through which Buddha himself had passed. These
places were commemorated by numerous pillars,
monasteries, and other monuments of King Asoka’s
time. One of them was found buried partially in
the earth near the village of Nigliva, about thirty-
seven miles north-west of the Uska station on the
North Bengal Railway, in the northern portion of the
Gorakhpur district of the North-Western Provinces,
and it was found in the very locality fixed on by
Vivien de St. Martin. But this was not all. When
the pillar was cleared of the soil and dust which
encumbered it, it was found to contain an inscription

234

LAST ESSAYS.

in the same alphabet and the same language which
are well known from many other monuments erected
by King Asoka in all parts of his kingdom. A paper
impression of this inscription was taken by Dr. Fiihrer
and sent to Dr. Buhler, who published the four lines
in the Academy of April 27, 1895. Imperfect as the
inscription was, it declared distinctly that King
Piyadasi, i. e. Asoka, in the fourteenth year after
his consecration enlarged the stupa of Buddha
Konakamana (Konagamana) for the second time, and
came himself to worship it. Nothing, however, was
said as to the geographical position of Kapilavastu
being fixed by that inscribed pillar, and though it
may be said that the topographical deductions were
inevitable, yet simple fairness compels us to say that
Major Waddell was the first to point out that this
pillar in commemoration of Konakamana was the same
which Fa-hian1 mentions in the fifth century, and
Hiouen-thsang 2 in the seventh, and that, therefore,
the site of Kapilavastu must be in close neighbourhood
of it, distant no more than one yo^ana, or about seven
miles to the west, according to the statement of the
Chinese pilgrims. This discovery was no doubt of
great value, both geographically and historically, and
it was more or less confirmed by a Tibetan book in
the possession of Major Waddell, in which the shrines
of Kraku/e/cAanda and Konakamana are mentioned as
situated near Kapilavastu. All this is by no means

1 Fa-liian, ed. Legge, p. 64, calls the Buddha Kanaka-muni.

* Hiouen-thsang (Julien, i. p. 316) calls him Kia-no-kia-meou-
ni-fo. ‘ Dans ce stoupa,’ he says, ‘on a eleve une colonne, haute
d’une vingtaine do pieds. Sur le sommet on a sculpts l’image d’un
lion, et, sur le cot6, on a grave 1’histoire du Nirvana de Kana-
kamoouni.’

BUDDHAS BIRTHPLACE.

235

intended to diminish in any way the credit due to
Dr. Fuhrer in his subsequent labours on the spot.
It is only meant to remind us that the topographical
importance of the Konakamana pillar as an ancient
finger-post was pointed out for the first time by
Major Waddell, and that it was he who suggested
to the Government to send out a deputy (Dr. Fuhrer)
when his own services were required elsewhere.

After the site of Kapilavastu had once been securely
fixed, it became easy to see that the ground all around
was covered by ruins of ancient stupas, monasteries,
villages, and towns. Very soon another of Asoka’s
pillars was found by Dr. Fuhrer, and identified as that
of Lumbini. This Lumbini was a well-known park
close to Kapilavastu, famous in Buddhist tradition as
the garden to which the queen retired, when going to
give birth to her first son, who was to become here-
after the founder of the Buddhist religion. That
pillar also had been described by Hiouen-thsang, who
mentions that in his time already it was broken in
two pieces, a statement confirmed by Dr. Fuhrer, who
tells us that the top part seems to have been shattered
by lightning. Hiouen-thsang does not mention that
it contained an inscription, probably because the lower
part of the pillar was no longer visible in his time.
But that inscription, as now laid bare, leaves no
doubt that the pillar was the identical pillar which
was erected by Asoka, for it declares that ‘ King
Piyadasi [Asoka], beloved of the gods, having been
anointed twenty years, himself came and worshipped,
saying, Here Buddha $akyamuni was horn, and he
caused a stone pillar to be erected, which declares,
“Here the Venerable was born.”’ The very name

236

LAST ESSAYS.

of the park, Lumini or Lumbini, occurs in the injured
part of the inscription, so that no doubt can remain
that this was indeed the spot where Buddha first saw
the light of the world, or, at all events, where King
Asoka in the third century before Christ, and about
three centuries after the birth of Buddha, was told
that it was so. According to the Divyavadana, the
guide who undertook to show the king the spots
where Buddha had sojourned was Upagupta1. He
began by conducting the king to the garden of
Lumbini, and extending his right hand he said, ‘ Here,
0 great King, was the Venerable [Bhagavat] born,
and here should be the first monument in honour of
the Buddha.’

After all this, scepticism would indeed seem un-
reasonable. That Asoka erected these commemorative
pillars is known from Buddhist books and from the
inscriptions on the pillars themselves. That they
existed in the fifth and seventh centuries after our
era is known from the itineraries of the Chinese
pilgrims, Fa-hian, Hiouen-thsang, and others. Their
existence even at a later time is attested by inscrip-
tions left on the upper part of the column by late]1
visitors, and therefore to doubt that they mark the
real spots of Buddha’s birth and early life would be
over-conscientious even for the most critical of
historians. It is true that the neighbourhood, as it
is at present, is very different from what it is de-
scribed to have been in Buddha’s time. The Terai
of Nepal is the most inhospitable part of India, and
if the towns with their Buddhist monuments were not

1 Waddell; ‘Upagupta,' J. A. Soc. Bengal , 1897, p. 81; quoting
Eurnouf, Introduction, p. 340.

buddha’s birthplace.

237

destroyed by warfare, they may well have been sub-
merged and ruined by floods occasioned by the rivers
which rise on the northern mountains and debouch on
the plains, carrying everything before them and
covering the ground with layers of mud, difficult to
pierce by the explorer’s spade.

That spade has become of late a kind of fetish for
archaeologists. It is quite right that it should be
worshipped, but its worship must not be carried too
far. After the stupas and pillars have been laid bare
by the spade, what do they teach us, unless they can
be made to speak again by their inscriptions ? Nay,
we may go a step further, for even when we know
from their interpretation that this was the garden into
which Maya, the mother of Buddha, retired, and laying
hold of the branch of a lofty Asvattha-ti’ee, gave birth
to the future Buddha, how does this help us to a proper-
understanding of Buddha’s teaching, its antecedents
in the past, and its true objects for the future ? It is
curious, no doubt, to know as a fact that Aryan life
extended, even at that early time, so far east and
north as Nepal, and that there was possibly a non-
Aryan element among the first converts to Buddhism.
But what is all that mere entourage compared with
the Prince himself, who was to work such a complete
revolution in the religious life of India — nay, of the
whole East ? It is that Prince and his thoughts that
we want to know and to understand, and this can be
done by a study of MSS. only, and by psychological
analysis, not by digging, however indefatigably, with
pickaxe and spade.

It would be narrow-minded to say that the ruins
of the Terai teach us nothing. On the contrary, it

238

LAST ESSAYS.

may be hoped that they will in time teach us a great
deal, and reveal to us much of the outward circum-
stances of Buddhism, at all events at the time of
Asoka in the third century. But, after all, the real
ruins of that ancient religion must be dug up with
the pen from MSS., whether in Sanskrit or in Pali,
and what has been dug up there will have to be
sifted and arranged by such piocheurs as Burnouf,
Oldenberg, Sdnart, Khys Davids, and others. Grateful
as we are to such laborious searchers and diggers as
General Cunningham, Major Waddell, Dr. Fiihrer, and
others, we should never forget that after all a spade
is a spade, and that other hands and heads are wanted
before stones can become monuments, true monimenta
to remind us of the life that was lived in the ruins of
Kapilavastu and in the garden of Lumbini.

There has been no lack of such labourers, coming to
help from all parts of the world, each contributing his
share towards the recovery of the birthplace of Buddha.
Greek scholars have helped us to prove that Asoka
was the grandson of Chandragupta, and that Chan-
dragupta was Sandrokyptos, the contemporary of
Alexander the Great. Here is our strong anchor for
Indian chronology.

China has given us the heroic pilgrims who found
their way across the dangerous mountain-passes and
snowdrifts to their Holy Land, who stayed there for
years studying the languages and customs of the
country, and leaving us careful descriptions of all they
saw from the Himalayan Mountains down to Ceylon.

It is to France that we owe Stanislas Julien, the
great Chinese scholar, who translated for the first
time the Travels of the Chinese explorers, which had

buddha’s bikthplace.

239

defied the scholarship of all former sinologues. To
the same country we owe the light that M. Sdnart has
shed on the inscriptions of Asoka and on Pali literature
in general.

German^7 also has contributed most valuable aid
in the labours of the late Dr. Biihler, whose recent
loss is keenly felt by all Sanskrit scholars, and more
particularly by Indian archaeologists.

But the spark that at last lighted the train that had
been so carefully laid by all these scholars came from
Surgeon-Major Waddell, who with rare pluck searched
the pestilential Terai of Nepal, and was the first to
recognize the geographical importance of the pillar
of Konakamana, and to read on it what no one had
read before him, ‘ This is the way to Kapilavastu,’
while Buddhists all over the world — in Ceylon,
Burma, Siam, and China — have hailed this dis-
covery with rapture. Several Buddhist scholars from
France and England have set out on their scientific
pilgrimages to the dangerous Nepalese Terai, and it
was one of them, M. Sylvain Ldvy, who on his return
from Kapilavastu delivered his eloquent discourse
before an audience of faithful Buddhists at Tokio in
Japan.

Let us hope that the Indian and Nepalese Govern-
ments will unite their forces in friendly rivalry, not,
as it has been supposed, to dig up hidden treasures,
but to lay bare by an army of spades whatever there
may still be left of the soil once trodden by the feet
of Buddha, and ornamented in the third century b.c.
by the monuments erected by the Constantine of
Buddhism, by Asoka, the grandson of Sandrokyptos.
the ally of Alexander the Great.

MOHAMMEDANISM AND
CHRISTIANITY1.

IT is at first a strange, but a decidedly pleasant,
sensation when we live in the midst of a Turkish
population to find how, on all ordinary subjects, their
feelings are our feelings, and their thoughts our
thoughts, and their motives our motives. They are
doing what is right and what is wrong “veiy much
as we do. They are satisfied with themselves and
ashamed of themselves just as we are.

When they speak about religion, which they do
rarely, they will speak of God just as we do, as the
Lord and Governor of the universe ; as just and right-
eous, yet always merciful ; and they will act as if
they were strongly convinced that virtue will be
rewarded and vice punished either in this life or in
the life to come. They have a very strict regard for
truth, and will respond to our confidence by equal
confidence. Are these, then, the Turks, infidels, and
heretics, we ask ourselves, for whom we used to pray ?
Is their religion false while ours is true ; is theii
morality corrupt while ours is pure?

Their customs and social habits are no doubt
different from ours, but they hardly ever become
obtrusive or offensive to others. 11 their life under
its good and its evil aspects may be taken as the

1 Nineteenth Century, February, 1894.

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 241

result of their religion, we shall have to confess that
these Turks and infidels and heretics really excel us
on several very important points. The most impor-
tant is that of sobriety. There is no force used to
prevent drinking ; and I am sorry to say that the
upper classes, which everywhere abound in black
sheep, are certainly no longer total abstainers. But
the middle and lower classes are ‘ free, and yet sober.’
If it is true, as a well-known English judge declared,
that nearly all our crimes can be traced back to
drunkenness, how can we help regretting that our
religion and our clergy should not have been able
to exercise the same salutary influence on the people
as the Koran and the Ulemahs! How can we help
wishing that they would teach us how to produce the
same results in Christendom which they have pro-
duced during the 1,273 years that their religion has
existed and has quickened the most torpid and lifeless
parts of the world !

There is another point on which it is more difficult
for strangers to form a decided opinion, but, if I may
trust my Turkish friends, no Turkish Mohammedan
woman leads an openly immoral life. Certainly such
sights as may be seen in many European capitals are
not to be seen at Constantinople. If the Moham-
medan religion can produce two such results — and it
seems hardly honest to ascribe all that is good in
Mohammedan countries to other causes, such as
climate or blood, and not to their religion — if it can
cure these two cancers that are eating into the flesh
of our modern society, drunkenness and immorality,
it would seem to deserve a higher regard and a more
careful examination than it has generally received

II. R

242

LAST ESSAYS.

from us. With us the feeling of the multitude about
Mohammed and Islam is still much the same as it
was at the time of the Crusades and during the
Middle Ages, though of late several weighty voices
have been raised against the ignorant condemnation
both of the Prophet and of his religion. Carlyle’s
essay on Mohammed, and Mr. Bosworth Smith s
excellent work, Mohammed and Mohammedanism ,
have powerfully influenced public opinion. The old
feeling of hostility against Islam was in its origin
political rather than religious. Europe has never
forgotten the cruelties perpetrated both in Asia and
Europe by Mohammedan armies recruited not only
from Arabia but from Mongolia and Tartary, and
their violent invasion of the East and West of
Europe still rankles in the hearts of many. Eveiy-
thing was believed of the armies of the Mahound,
and in modern times the unspeakable atrocities in
Bulgaria and Anatolia have revived the slumbering
feelings of hatred among the great masses in Euiope.

Still it was not always so, particularly in England,
when 300 years ago it was for the first time brought
into political relations with the Turkish Empiie.
There were periods in the history of England when
the feeling towards Islam was more than tolerant.
Queen Elizabeth, when arranging a treaty with Sultan
Murad Khan, states that Protestants and Moham-
medans alike are haters of idolatry, and that she is the
defender of the faith against those who have falsely
usurped the name of Christ1. Her ambassador was
still more outspoken, for he wrote on the 9th of
November, 1587: ‘Since God alone protects His own,

1 Hist. Review, July, 1893, p. 4S0.

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

243

He will so punish these idolaters (the Spaniards)
through us, that they who survive will be converted
by their example to worship with us the true God,
and you, fighting for this glory, will heap up victory
and all other good things.’ The same sentiments
were expressed on the part of the Sublime Porte,
by Sinan Pasha, who about the same time told the
Roman ambassador that to be good Musulmans all
that was wanting to the English was that they should
raise a finger and pronounce the Eshed, or Confession
of Faith1. The real differences between Islam and
Christianity were considered so small by the Moham-
medans themselves that at a later time we find
another Turkish ambassador, Ahmed Rasmi Effendi,
assuring Frederick the Great that they considered
Protestants as Mohammedans in disguise 2.

As for the atrocities charged against Mohammedan
armies, it is for the historian to clear up this matter,
and to find out whether the armies of the Sultan have
really been the only armies guilty of committing
atrocities in war. Even during the more recent
Bulgarian troubles American missionaries, who were
eye-witnesses, assure us that the atrocities committed
by Turkish Bashibazuks were not greater than those
committed by Christian armies when the day of
victory and revenge had come. But, whatever the
historical truth may be, no student of the history of
religion, no reader of the Koran, would venture to say
that the atrocities of Mohammedan warfare were
sanctioned by the Koran. On that point, on teaching
clemency towards the vanquished, the Kordn is not

1 Hist. Review , July, 1893, p. 430.

2 New Review , 1893, p. 49.

244

LAST ESSAYS.

behind the Old Testament or the Laws of Manu. If
it had not been for the political part which the
followers of Mohammed acted in the history of
the world, their religion as taught in the Koran
would have been, or at all events ought to have
been, welcomed as a friend and ally both by Chris-
tians and by Jews. It was not at first a new or
hostile religion ; it was, as Mohammed declared him-
self, the old religion of Abraham, preached to the
ignorant and idolatrous tribes of Arabia. Long
before the time of Mohammed, Arabia was full of
Jews and Christians. Gibbon speaks of Jews settled
in Arabia 700 years before Mohammed, and he men-
tions new arrivals after the wars of Titus. As to
Christianity, we know from Philostorgius 1 that in
the year 342 an Italian bishop (Theophilus) was sent
by the Emperor Constantius to the King of Yemen,
and was allowed to build three Christian churches,
one at Zafar, another at Adan, and a third at Hormuz
on the Persian Gulf. The same writer speaks of the
city of Najran in Yemen as the seat of a Christian
bishop, and affirms that some important tribes had
been converted there to Christianity. There was
a magnificent church at Sana, to which the Arabs
were ordered to go by the Christian ruler of Abyssinia
when performing their pilgrimage, instead of visit-
ing the Ka'ba. This led to the famous War of the
Elephant in the very year of Mohammed’s birth, so
called because the Viceroy of Egypt, at the head of
an army of Abyssinians, was fighting mounted on
an elephant. Mohammed’s immediate instructors
in Christianity were Jabr and Yasar, and they are

1 Hist. Eccles., i. p. 4.

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

245

said to have read to him both the Old and the New
Testament. Nor is this all. The prophet’s favourite
wife Khadijah and her cousin Waraka, the Prophet’s
intimate friend, were both suspected of having em-
braced Christianity. They were, at all events,
acquainted with Christian doctrines. Among the
Prophet’s numerous wives we find a Jewess and
a Coptic Christian. Among his advisers we meet
with the name of a Christian monk called Sergius,
in Arabic Boheira (Buhairah). No historian, there-
fore, can doubt that Mohammed was acquainted with
Judaism and Christianit}-, and must have been in-
fluenced by them — nay, that he was favourably
disposed towards them, more particularly in his
strong antagonism to idolatry and polytheism. For
a time it might indeed have seemed as if Mohammed
was but the founder of a new Jewish or Christian
sect. Not only did he distinctly represent the reli-
gion which he preached as the old religion of Abra-
ham, but he spoke of the Old and New Testaments
as the Word of God, and he spoke of Jesus in even
higher terms than of Abraham. All he wished to do
at first was to explain much of what was hidden of
the Book1 and to remove the false opinions enter-
tained of Christ. Unfortunately the form in which
Christianity reached him was most corrupt, and
offended him by the perverted doctrine of the Trinity
even more than it had offended the Jews. He
accepted the Gospel as the revelation of God, and
Jesus as the true prophet of God, but he wished to
see Christianity purified and freed from later corrup-
tions. Christian theologians of the narrowest school

1 Koran, v. 18.

246

LAST ESSAYS.

have admitted this, and even the Rev. Marcus Rods,
now in the full odour of orthodoxy, declares that, if
Mohammed had but known the true character of
Christ, ‘Christianity would have had one more
reformer.’ There is, of course, no evidence for saying
that Mohammed ever was a Christian, but he might
have been, except for the corruptions which had crept
into Christianity through the most ignorant of
Christian sects. Mohammed’s feelings at first were
evidently more friendly towards the Christians than
towards the Jews. He declares that both Jews and
Christians will be saved if they do what is right.
‘Verily,’ he says1, ‘those who believe and those who
are Jews, and the Sabaeans and the Christians, whoso-
ever believes in God and the last day, and does what
is right, there is no fear for them, nor shall they
grieve.’ But, he adds2, ‘Thou wilt surely find that
the strongest in the enmity against those who believe
are the Jews and the idolaters, and thou wilt find the
nearest in love to those who believe to be those who
say, “We are Christians”; that is because there are
amongst them priests and monks, and because they
are not proud.’ It was the false doctrine of the
Trinity, as taught at the time by certain Christian
sects with whom Mohammed had to deal, that most
strongly repelled him from Christianity. ‘They mis-
believe,’ he says3, ‘who say, Verily, God is the
Messiah, the son of Mary, but the Messiah said,
O children of Israel, worship God, my Lord and your
Lord.’ A prophet who had abolished Al-Lat, Al- Uzza,
Manat, and the other goddesses of Arabia, was natur-
ally horrified at seeing Mary, the mother ot the

1 Koran, v. 73- 3 v* ^5- 3 v> 7®*

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 247

Messiah, worshipped in the same way as a goddess,
for instance by the Colly ridian Christians. After the
repeated condemnations pronounced by Mohammed
against what he wrongly believed to be Christianity,
because it happened to be the Christianity of his
neighbours, missionaries have found it extremely
difficult to convince his followers that Mohammed
was mistaken, and that Christ Himself never taught
that His mother was a goddess, that God was the
Messiah or the Messiah an alter Deus. It is too late
now to regret the misunderstanding between Moham-
med and his Christian contemporaries. Many things
can be prevented, but few things can be undone, and
the loss which Christianity has suffered in alienating
the powerful support of Mohammed in the East seems
now almost impossible to repair. I felt this in every
conversation which I had with enlightened Turks,
and their number is by no means small. After long
discussions we had generally to admit in the end that,
in all the essential points of a religion, the differences
between the Koran and the New Testament are very
small indeed, and that but for old misunderstandings
the two religions, Islam and Christianity, might have
been one. In our friendly discussions my Turkish
friends differed from each other on many points, for
the number of sects is larger in Islam than even in
Christianity ; but in the end they could not resist my
appeal that we should be guided in our discussions by
the Koran, and by the Koran alone.

They all agreed that there were six articles of faith
which all Musulmans accepted as fundamental, and
as resting on the authority of the Koran : the unityr
of God, the existence of angels, the inspired character

248

LAST ESSAYS.

of certain books, the inspired character of certain
prophets, the day of judgement, and the decrees of
God. Some added a seventh article, a belief in the
resurrection, but this is really included in the belief
in a day of judgement.

On the first and most important article — i.e. the
unity of Godhead — Christians, Mohammedans, and
Jews are all of one mind. If certain Christian sects
exposed themselves to the suspicion of recognizing
three Gods, I had no difficulty in proving to my
Turkish friends that this was a later corruption, a
mere invention of theologians and philosophers, and
diametrically opposed to the true spirit of Christi-
anity, though similar ideas might possibly not be
quite extinct even at the present day among some
theological schools. Nowhere has the misunderstand-
ing of a metaphor wrought more serious mischief than
in the dogmatic conclusions that were based on the
simple expression of ‘Son of God.’ It is perfectly
true that as soon as people are made to realize what
Son of God would mean if it were not a metaphor, or
if it were taken in a mythological not in a philoso-
phical sense, they shrink with horror from realizing
the thought ; still they think they may play fast and
loose with the metaphorical wording, and they repeat
words which they would not dare to translate into
clear thought. I had to admit that on this point, on
the relation between Divinity and Humanity, the
language of the Koran is far more elevated and less
liable to misapprehension. The Koran says ‘ God
will create what He will ; when He decreeth a thing,
He only saith Be, and it is/ It would never tolerate
even a metaphorical nativity. It may be said that

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 249

1 Word of God,’ a name which Mohammed, like
St. John, assigns to Christ, and to Christ alone, is
likewise a metaphor. So it is, but it is the most
perfect metaphor, the most sublime conception of the
relation between man and God, recognizing God in
man, and man in God ; nor is it exposed to the almost
inevitable misunderstandings arising from sonship.
That Mohammed calls Christ the Word of God, and
that he places the first man Adam above the angels,
shows that he had some idea of the Logos, as con-
ceived by Christian philosophers. Thus, when speak-
ing of Adam the Koran calls him the viceregent or
caliph of God. God Himself taught Adam the names,
which means the knowledge, of all things, while the
angels remained ignorant till Adam himself told them
the names. Hence the angels lay prostrate before
Adam. This shows how high and how true a con-
ception Mohammed had of man and of his divine
birthright which places him above all angels. With
all this, Mohammed distinguished carefully between
Adam and Christ, for while it is said that God
breathed His spirit into Adam, Adam himself is
never, like Christ, called the spirit of God (Ruhu
’llah).

On the first and fundamental article of Islam, the
unity of God, I and my friends agreed that there could
be no real difference of opinion between an orthodox
Musulman and an orthodox Christian, and I succeeded
in convincing them by historical evidence that the
false opinion which the Prophet had formed of the
Trinity as a disguised Tritheism was entirely due to
the corrupt opinions held by Christian sects settled in
Arabia in the seventh century.

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LAST ESSAYS.

Nor did we find much difficulty in arriving at
an understanding about the second article, a belief
in angels. It is true that this is not an essen-
tial article of faith in Christianity, still both in
Christian and Jewish traditions angels (Malak) have
their recognized place, and in a certain sense even
a higher place than in Islam. For while in the
Bible Adam is represented as a little lower than the
angels, in the Koran the angels have to bow before
Adam.

On the third article, however, there was naturally
at first much greater difference of opinion. That
there are books which may be called inspired both
religions hold alike, but they differ as to the books
which deserve that name. The most important point,
however, is the admission of the possibility of inspira-
tion, or of an immediate communication between the
Deity and man. The Mohammedans distinguish
between two kinds of inspiration. The first called
wahy zdhir, or external inspiration, the second wahy
bdtin, or internal inspiration. We should call the
former literal, when every word and every letter
wore believed to have proceeded from the mouth of
Gabriel ; the latter general, when the Prophet was led
by thought and reasoning to the perception of truth
and enunciated it in his own words. Now it is quite
possible that Christians would not allow that the
Arabic words of the Koran came from the Deity,
whether directly or indirectly, and my friends pointed
out that many portions in the Bible also — the his-
torical chapters, for instance — could not possibly have
been spoken by Jehovah, still less by God the Father.
That Christ, however, was divinely inspired no Muslim

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 251

would deny, nor need any Christian deny the gift of
wahy bdtin to Mohammed whenever his doctrines are
the same as those of Christ — that is, whenever they
are true.

Much the same question had to be discussed again
when we came to consider the third article of the
Mohammedan faith, a belief in inspired prophets.
Mohammed believed in a whole class of chosen people
who at all times and in all countries were meant to
act as mediators between God and man. This is a
most important belief, and wherever it prevails man-
kind is at once raised to a higher level, and brought
into closer communion with the unseen world. The
same belief lies at the root of Buddhism ; for the
Buddha $akyamuni is represented as but one of
a class of Buddhas or enlightened beings who in
different ages are to deliver mankind from sin and
misery. St. Paul expressed the same thought when
he said, ‘ God, who at sundry times in divers manners
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.’
Mohammed would have understood these words better
than many Christian interpreters, for to him the Son
is in the true sense the Kalimatu ’llah, ‘the Word of
God.’ Mohammed took the most comprehensive views
of the historical growth of the religions of the world,
as far as he knew them, and it is much to his credit
that he did not represent the religion which he preached
himself as a new religion, but simply as the old religion
believed in by Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, but purified
by him from misunderstandings and corruptions, par-
ticularly such as had crept into it among the Christian
sects in Arabia. In this respect he did no more than

252

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what the Reformers did at a later time in Europe:
he freed Christianity from human corruptions and
misinterpretations. He protested against Christ being
made another God, and against the Virgin being
worshipped as a goddess. In Arabia the doctrine of
the Trinity had been so completely misunderstood
that the official formula was no longer the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost, but the Father, Mary, and
their Son.

In protesting against such heresy every Christian,
particularly every Protestant Christian, would go hand
in hand with Mohammed, nor need it be feared that
Mohammed would ever usurp the place due to Christ
alone. Mohammed claims to be the last, but not the
greatest, of the prophets. He himself expresses greater
reverence for Christ than for any other prophet. Pie
called Him the Word of God, which is the highest
predicate that human language can bestow, and which
to Mohammed meant far more than the name of Son
of God.

There remained, therefore, two articles only for our
discussion : the fourth and fifth, the Day of Judgement
and the Decrees of God. On the broad doctrines that
there will be a day of judgement and a resurrection,
I and my adversaries, or rather my friends, were able
to agree without difficulty. The divergences began as
usual when we came to minutiae ; but here I think
I was able to convince my friends that that religion
is best which says least, or says what Christ said :

‘ Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the
angels of heaven, but My Father only’; and again,
‘ What no eye hath seen nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man the things which God

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 253

hath prepared for them that love Him. But God
hath revealed them unto us by the Spirit.’

Lastly, as to the Decrees of God, or what we should
call Predestination and Free Will, we find among
Mohammedans the same disputes as among Christians.
The fundamental principle ‘ that by no means can
aught befall us but what God hath destined V is
acknowledged by both religions, and likewise, e Who-
ever doeth that which is right will have their reward
with the Lord.’ An}^ attempt to go beyond these two
principles leads to barren controversy only. We are
told that when Mohammed found his companions
debating about fate, he was angry and his face became
red to such a degree that you would say the seeds of
a pomegranate had been bruised on it. And he said,
‘ Hath God ordered you to debate of fate ? Was I sent
to you for this? Your forefathers were destroyed for
debating about fate and destiny. I adjure you not to
argue these points.’ This reminds us of the stern
manner in which Buddha rebuked his companions,
whenever they asked him questions which he con-
sidered as beyond the grasp of the human under-
standing, and it would have been well if the same
rebuke could sometimes have been administered to
Calvin and his disciples.

If, then, these are the six fundamental articles
of the Mohammedan faith, we agreed that they
would offer no excuse for a split between Islam and
Christianity. Every Christian could subscribe to
every one of them. The mischief begins when an
attempt is made to define things which cannot be
defined or to speak of them even in metaphors,

1 Surah ix. 51.

254

LAST ESSAYS.

which after a time are sure to be taken in a literal
sense.

It has often been said that a religion must be false
which teaches what the Koran teaches about a future
life. I do not think so. In every religion we must
make allowances for anthropomorphic imagery, nor
would it be possible to describe the happiness of
Paradise except in analogy with human happiness.
Why, then, exclude the greatest human happiness,
companionship with friends, of either sex, if sex
there be in the next world ? Why assume the
Pharisaical mien of contempt for what has been
our greatest blessing in this life, while yet we speak
in very human imagery of the city of Holy Jerusalem,
twelve thousand furlongs in length, in breadth and
height, and the walls thereof one hundred and forty-
four cubits, and the building of the wall of jasper and
the city of pure gold, and the foundations of the wall
garnished with all manner of precious stones, jasper,
sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius,
' chrysolite, chrysoprasus, jacinth, and amethyst ? If
such childish delights as that of women in certain
so-called precious stones are admitted in the life to
come, why should the higher joys of life be excluded
from the joys of heaven? If Mohammed placed the
loveliness of women above the loveliness of gold and
amethyst, why should he be blamed for it? People
seem to imagine that Mohammed knew no other joys
of heaven, and represented Paradise as a kind of
heavenly harem. Nothing can be more mistaken.
In many places when he speaks of Paradise the
presence of women is not even mentioned, and
where they are mentioned they are generally men-

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

255

tioned as wives or friends. Thus we read1: ‘ Verily,
the fellows of Paradise upon that day shall be
employed in enjoyment, they and their wives, in
shade upon thrones, reclining ; therein they shall
have fruits, and they shall have what they may
call for, Peace, a speech from the merciful God.’
Or2: ‘For these shall enter Paradise, and shall not
be wronged at all, gardens of Eden, which the
Merciful has promised to His servants in the unseen ;
verily, this promise ever comes to pass.’ Is it so
very wrong, then, that saints are believed to enter
Paradise with their wives, as when we read3: ‘ 0 my
servants, enter ye into Paradise, ye and your wives,
happy ? ’

In this and similar ways the pure happiness of the
next life is described in the Koran, and if, in a few
passages, not only wives but beautiful maidens also
are mentioned among the joys of heaven, why should
this rouse indignation ? True, it shows a less spiritual
conception of the life to come than a philosopher
would sanction, but, however childish, there is
nothing indelicate or impure in the description of
the Houris.

The charge of sensuality is a very serious charge in
the Western world, and it is difficult for us to make
allowances for the different views on the subject
among Oriental people. From our point of view,
Mohammed himself would certainly be called a sen-
sualist. He sanctioned polygamy, and he even
allowed himself a larger number of wives and slaves
than to his followers. Mohammedans, however, as
I was informed, take a different view. They admire
1 Surah xxxvi. 55. 2 xix. 60. 3 xliii. 62.

256

LAST ESSAYS.

him for having remained for twenty-five years faithful
to one wife, a wife a good deal older than himself.
They consider his marrying other wives as an act of
benevolence, in granting them his protection while
others were ‘averse from marrying orphan women L*
Mohammedans look upon polygamy as a remedy of
many social evils, and they are not far wrong. We
must not forget that Mohammed had to give laws to
barbarous and degenerate tribes, with whom a woman
was no more than a chattel, carried off, like a camel
or a horse, by whoever was strong enough to defy his
rivals. In Arabia, as elsewhere, women were more
numerous than men, and the only protection for a
woman, particularly an orphan woman, was a husband.
Much worse than polygamy was female slavery ; still
even that was better than what existed before. We
must not forget that even now the slave who has
become a mother has a recognized position in the
famity, and that her child is legitimate. They have
in Turkey no young mothers who commit suicide
or drown their illegitimate offspring. Though neither
polygamy nor slavery can be approved, I confess
that I found it hard to answer Mohammedan critics
who had seen the streets and prisons of Paris and
London. There are many enlightened Mohammedans
who condemn polygamy and slavery. Polygamy, in
fact, is dying out. Mohammed did not enjoin it, he
simply tolerated it, as it was tolerated among the Jews,
and carried even to excess by some of their kings
such as David and Solomon — men, we are told, after
Jehovah’s own heart.

In all my discussions, however, with my Turkish

1 Surah iv. 12 c.

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

237

friends there was one point which they could not
gainsay, the high ideal of human life as realized in
Christ and by no other prophet. This is, and always
will be, the real strength of Christianity. Christianity
was not only taught, it was lived, by Christ. As
judged by his own contemporaries, Mohammed was
no doubt a highly estimable character. He had
gained the name of el Amin, the Faithful, among
his people, long before he became a prophet. No
breach of the law as then existing can be laid to
his charge during a long life in which he made open
war against the most cherished errors and prejudices
of his compatriots. He devoted his life to the cause
of truth and right, and to the welfare of his fellow
creatures. That he recognized the spirit of God in
the spirit of truth within him stamps him at once as
a true prophet ; that he mistook that still small voice
for the voice of the Archangel Gabriel only shows that
he spoke a language which we no longer understand.
The results which he achieved were very marvellous,
if we consider that he was originally a poor camel-
driver at Mekkah in Arabia, and that his religion
extended rapidly from the rising to the setting of the
sun. One thing is greatly to his credit. His followers
soon ascribed to him the power of working miracles ;
he himself declared most strongly against all miracles,
though in his case also they were clamorously demanded
by an adulterous generation. And, as if foreseeing the
difficulties which always arise when the thoughts and
commands of one man or of one generation are stereo-
typed for all time, he left behind him these memorable
words : ‘ I am no more than a man : when I order you
anything with respect to religion, receive it ; and when
II. S

258

LAST ESSAYS.

I order you anything about the affairs of the world,
then I am nothing more than a man.’ What stronger
ferman can social reformers demand for the abolition
of polygamy, slavery, and for other changes required
by the changed circumstances of the time, than these
solemn words of their own wise Prophet ?

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA1.

1. Confucianism.

Cl HINA has had for a long time not one but three
J State religions — that is, three religions tolerated,
supported, and protected by the State. The most
widely spread and thoroughly national, however, is
that which was restored and preserved, though not
founded, by Confucius. Though it goes by his name
as Confucianism, he himself, it should be remembered,
never claims the books on which it rests as his own.
These books are the Five Kings: —

(i) The Yih King, the Book of Changes.

(2) The ShU King, the Book of Historical Docm
ments.

(3) The She King, the Book of Poetry.

(4) The Le Ke, the Record of Rites.

(5) The Ch'eun Tsew, Spring and Autumn, a chronicle
of events from 721 B. C. to 480.

Secondly the four books, the Shu, or the books of
the Four Philosophers : —

(1) The Lun Fit, the Digested Conversations, chiefly
the sayings of Confucius.

(2) The Ta HeS, or Great Learning, commonly
attributed to Tsang Sin, a disciple of Confucius.

1 Nineteenth Century, September, October, and November, 1900.

2£0

LAST ESSAYS.

(3) The Chung Yung , or the Doctrine of the Mean,
ascribed to K'ung Keih, the grandson of Confucius.

(4) The Works of Mencius1.

Confucius calls himself a transmitter only, not a
maker, believing in and loving the ancients. When
speaking of himself, he says : ‘ At fifteen I had my
mind bent on learning. At thirty I stood firm. At
forty I had no doubts. At fifty I knew the decrees of
heaven. At sixty my ear was an obedient organ for
the reception of truth. At seventy I could follow
what my heart desired, without transgressing what
was right.’ Confucius died in 478 B.C., complaining
that among all the Princes of the Empire there was
not one who had adopted his principles, not one who
would obey his lessons. This shows— what is, in
fact, confirmed from other sources — that he himself
was not an active reformer, so that while alive he
scarcely produced a ripple on the smooth and silent
surface of the religious thought of his own country.
He was, no doubt, in advance of his- contemporaries,
but he took his stand chiefly on certain verities that
had come down to him from ancient times, and his
faith in these verities and in their coming revival has
certainly not been belied by what happened after his
death. His grandson already speaks of him as the
ideal of a sage, as a sage is the ideal of all humanity.
But even this grandson was far from claiming divine
honours for his grandsire, though he certainly seems
to exalt his wisdom and virtue beyond the limits of
human nature. Thus he writes : —

‘ He may be compared to heaven and earth in their supporting
and containing, their overshadowing and curtaining all things ; he

1 See Legge, Confucius, pp. 1, 2.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

261

may be compared to the four seasons in their alternating progress,
and to the sun and moon in their successive shining. . . . Quick
in appx-eliension, clear in discernment, of far-reaching intellect
and all-embracing knowledge, he was fitted to exercise rule.
Magnanimous, generous, benign, and mild, he was fitted to exercise
forbearance. Impulsive, energetic, firm and enduring, he was
fitted to maintain a firm hold. Self-adjusted, grave, never swerving
from the mean, and correct, he was fitted to command reverence.
Accomplished, distinctive, coneentrative, and searching, he was
fitted to exercise discrimination '. . . . All-embracing and vast, he
was like heaven ; deep and active as a fountain, he was like the
abyss. . . . Therefore his fame overspreads the Middle Kingdom
and extends to ail barbarous tribes. Wherever ships and carriages
reach, wherever the strength of man penetrates, wherever the
heavens overshadow and the earth sustains, wherever the sun and
moon shine, wherever frost and dews fall, all who have blood and
breath unfeignedly honour and love him. Hence it is said, He is
the equal of Heaven.’

Considering that all this is said of a man who died
as a simple official in a provincial town, the fact that
in the second generation after him he was called the
equal of Heaven is certainly surprising, particularly
if we remember that Heaven is here used in the sense
of the Divine. Confucius himself would have most
strongly protested against any of the doctrines of his
religion, as taught in the Five Kings and the Four
Shus, being ascribed to him or to any superhuman
source. There is no other founder of any religious
or philosophical system so anxious to hide his own
personality, and to confess the general truth that
what we receive is much, and what we add ourselves
is little — infinitesimally little if compared with what
we receive. And what is the result ? Hundreds of
millions are now professedly followers of Confucius,
while we are told that Hegel on his death-bed

1 Several of these adjectives can be translated approximately
only, as there is nothing exactly corresponding to them in English.

262

LAST ESSAYS.

declared that he had left one disciple only, and that
this disciple had misunderstood him. If some of our
modern philosophers lay so much stress on what they
imagine is entirely their own invention — such as, for
instance, evolution or development or grotvth or Werden
— is not that chiefly owing to their ignorance of the
history of philosophy ? Religion is in that respect
very much like language. People may preserve, they
may even improve, purify, and add to their language,
but in the end they are, like Confucius, not inventors,
but only transmitters of language and religion.

How closely the fundamental ideas of the Chinese
religion are connected with language has been shown
for the first time by Professor Legge. He has laid
bare a whole stratum of language and religion in
China of which we had formerly no idea, and it is
owing to our ignorance of that stratum that the
Chinese religion has so often been represented as
unconnected with Nature- worship such as we find
in all Aryan religions ; as without any mythology —
nay, as without any God. But it cannot be doubted
that several of these mythological and religious ideas
appear even at an earlier time in China than in India
or in Egypt and Babylon. And they appear there not
only in the words, but, as Professor Legge has shown,
even in the written symbols of the words which are
generally ascribed to nearly 4,000 or 6,000 years
before our time.

This surely requires the attention of all students
of antiquity. It has generally been supposed that it
was chiefly among the Aryan nations that Nature
led on to Nature’s gods ; and it is hardly doubted
now that not only the heavenly luminaries, but dawn

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

263

and night, rain and thunder, rivers and trees and
mountains, were worshipped in the Veda, though
while this kind of worship led to Polytheism, there
were always faint rays of Monotheism which may
possibly be due to a more ancient worship of the sky
and the sun, and which afterwards developed into the
conception of one God, or of one God above all gods.
I say possibly, though what we know of the religious
ideas of other nations, and even of savage and uncivil-
ized races, seems to admit of this explanation only.
That similar traces of a worship of Nature would be
found in China was never even suspected. At all
events the religion of the Chinese seemed to have
left the mythological stage long before the time of
Confucius. It seemed to be a prosaic and thoroughly
unpoetical religion — full of sensible and wise saws,
but a system of morality and of worldly wisdom rather
than of religious dogmas and personal devotion. If it
was full of eternal verities, it was also full of truisms.
Again, if we mean by religion a revelation of the
Deity, of its existence, its acts and its qualities,
miraculously imparted to inspired seers and prophets,
Confucius and those who followed him knew of none
of these things, and hence they were even accused of
having had no religion at all, or of having been
Atheists in disguise. Against such a charge however,
as Professor Legge has clearly shown, the Chinese
language, nay, even the Chinese system of writing,
protests most strongly. I ought to mention, perhaps,
that Professor Legge was well acquainted with what
I had written about Dyaus , Zeus, and Jupiter. He
knew that in Sanskrit dyaus, as a feminine, means
sky, the bright one, from a root DIY or DJIT, to

264

LAST ESSAYS.

shine ; while Dyaus, as a masculine, is the bright sky,
conceived as an agent, and that he was at one time
the first and oldest god of the Aryan pantheon.
Dyaus was in fact the same word as Zeus, and as
Jovis and Ju in Jujtiter, while the original meaning
of Jovis breaks through in such comparisons as sub
Jove frigido, under the cold sky1.

In Chinese, as Professor Legge 2 showed, tien, is
the sign for sky and day, but it is also the name for
God. It is true that Chinese scholars derive this sign
from — * (yi, one) and ^ ( ta , great), so that it would
have signified from the beginning ‘ the One and
greatest.’ This, however, would psychologically, if
not chronologically, be a late name for Deity. It is
true that the Chinese written symbols go back to
nearly 5,000 years before our time, or to between the
third and fourth millennium B.c. If Hwang-ti was
the inventor of the written characters, his first year
was 2697 B. c.; if Fu-hsi invented them, the first year
of his reign was 369 7 B.c.3 This is a very ancient date,
but the question before us is whether we may not
even go behind these Chinese inventors of alphabets,
and look upon the explanation of their symbol for
Tien, as meaning by its component parts the One
and the Greatest Being, as ben trovato rather than
vero. When Confucius, however, uses such terms as
Tien, heaven, Ti, Lord, and Sliang-Ti, Supreme Lord,
synonymously, it is quite clear that with him Tien
meant no longer the visible sky only, but the in-

1 See Nineteenth Century, 1885, ‘The Lesson of Jupiter’; see also
Chips, iv. pp. 368-411.

2 Legge, Religions of China, p. 9.

3 Ibid., p. 59.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

265

visible agent behind the sky. The interval between
Tien, the sky, and Tien, God, may be as large as that
between Dyaus, the skj^, and Dyaus, the God, but the
original conception of the Divine, in China as well as
in India, was clearly taken from something visible in
nature, and in this case from the visible sky.

This Tien or Ti, we are told, was never prostituted
to express the many gods or idols, but in spite of all
the changes that followed in the history of their reli-
gion, kept the Chinese to their monotheistic belief1 in
heaven, and then only in a God in heaven, the One
and the Greatest. But when Tien, or Ti, or Shang-Ti,
is said to be the ruler of men and of all this lower
world, when men are said to be His peculiar care,
when He is said to have appointed grain to be the
nourishment of all, and to have exalted kings to their
high position for their good, Heaven is no longer the
visible heaven only, as little as it is so in the New
Testament, when the prodigal son says, ‘Father, I
have sinned against heaven, and before thee.’ That
same Tien, Heaven, watches, as we are told, over the
kings ; he smells the savour of their offerings, and
blesses them and their people with abundance, while
he punishes them if they are negligent of their duties.
Any psychologist who knows the secret workings of
the mind, and has observed how changes of thought
and changes of language run parallel, can easily
understand how even the mere application of such
a word as dear to the sky — Dear Sky, £> <j)C Ae Zed,
changes the sky into more than a mere animal or
living thing, such as is postulated by Animism ;
while expressions such as the ‘ sky rains,’ or ‘ he rains,’

1 Legge, Religions of China, pp. n, 16.

266

LAST ESSAYS.

instead of c it rains,’ completes the personification of
any inanimate agent, whether sky, or hill, or river,
or tree. Very learned terms are used for what is in
reality perfectly simple, and nothing seems so de-
structive of clear thought on these subjects as high-
sounding names, such as Fetishism, Animism, &c.
‘ Feiti^o ’ ( factitius ) or ‘fbtiche,’ or ‘fetish’ is a name
given by ignorant Portuguese sailors to the amulets
of the negroes on the West Coast of Africa; and
fetichi&me, as a system, was invented by that most
ignorant and pedantic of ethnologists, De Brosses,
whose wild ideas of Fetishism as a primitive form of
religion have survived even the ridicule of Voltaire,
and have not been made less ridiculous by the
patronage bestowed upon it by Comte and his
followers. As to Animism, anybody who watches
uncivilized races or common people even in Europe
knows perfectly well that when, for instance, the
moon is called in German ‘Dear Moon,’ or Herr Mond1,
he becomes at once an agent, an active, but not yet
a masculine or feminine person. Anyhow, these
merely grammatical changes, which have been fully
discussed by Grimm in his German Grammar, are
sufficient to explain to any student of psychology
and language the natural transition of inanimate to
animate objects. They require no mysterious help
from what is called Animism, particularly if Animism
is supposed to refer to that anima, breath, which
presupposes lungs and throat.

It is important to have a clear conception of all
this before we approach the so-called spirits of Nature
and the spirits of the departed, who are said to have
1 Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, iii. p. 346.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

267

been worshipped by the Chinese from very early
times. Anyhow, their names and their written signs
existed, and they by themselves would carry us back
at least to about 2697 b.c. But what idea can we
connect with such beings as Shan, the spirits of the
sky, Ch'i, the spirits of the earth, and Kwei , the spirits
of the departed or the Chinese manes ? We are told
that to judge from the ideograph for CKi or Shi, the
spirits of the earth, it was meant originally for mani-
festation and what is above. In the sign for Shan
also there is the element indicating what is above.
The sign for Kwei, the manes, is explained by native
Chinese scholars in the most fanciful way. But it is
quite clear that every one of these names and signs
for so-called spirits does not stand for something
independent of clouds, rain, thunder, and winds, or
for something animated or breathing, still less for
a mere amulet or an idol, as little as Agni in the
Veda means something independent of fire. If the
Chinese speak of the spirit of rain, thunder, &c., they
do not mean something apart from the rain, but rain
and thunder conceived as active. We may do what
we like, thunder as a spirit is no more than thunder
as an agent, or as active; and to imagine that the
term Animism, to say nothing of Fetishism, helps us
in the least to understand the origin of these concepts
is simply to blind ourselves by a mist of words. If
we must have a technical term instead of Animism,
it should be Agentism, which, barbarous as it sounds,
is not more so than many other technical terms, and
is certainly better, if only properly understood. The
language of the Chinese seems almost to have been
constructed in order to prevent the misrepresentation

268

LAST ESSAYS.

that the religion of China took its form from the
principles of Animism1 and Fetishism.

The step from thunder and rain as agents to the
spirits of thunder and rain is easily perceived as
almost inevitable, in China as well as in ancient
India. Only in China the subordination of these
spirits to Tien or Ti, the Supreme Lord, was more
clearly felt than in India. There is a danger indeed,
as Professor Legge fully admitted, of the spiritual
potencies being regarded as independent, and being
elevated to the place of gods, as they were in the
Veda; but in China the most ancient and strong
conviction of the existence of one God, originally the
one Heaven, prevented the rising of the manifesta-
tions of nature into the so-called spirits and their
claiming equality with Tien as the One God. This
is the real difference in China between the One God
and the many gods or spirits or agents of nature
which in other countries have given rise to various
systems of Polytheism.

It is curious to observe that even the name of heaven
and earth is used, not as the name of two Deities,
like Dyava-PWthivyau, heaven and earth, in the
Veda, but as the name of one, namely of Tien, the
one Supreme God. Thus we read Heaven and Earth
is the parent (like father or mother) of all creatures.
In order to avoid all danger of having two supreme
Deities instead of one, Confucius says distinctly : the
ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth are
those by which we serve Shcing-Ti 2, the Supreme
God.

Little as such a naturalistic origin of Chinese

1 Logge, The Religions of China, p. 19. 2 Ibid. p. 30.

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269

religion was suspected, we can hardly doubt that
Professor Legge was right in rejecting Animism and
Fetishism, whatever they may be said to mean, as
at the bottom of the home-grown religion of China,
and tracing its origin straight to the same source
from which we know the ancient religious beliefs of
the Aryan races to have sprung. This is a most
important discovery, and it is extraordinary how
little its importance has hitherto been appreciated,
though nothing has been said against any of his
arguments. Professor Legge did not only know
Chinese, but, like Stanislas Julien, he almost was
a Chinese in his thoughts and feelings. One feels
that one can trust him as a true scholar. It is true,
no doubt, that the religion, such as we find it in the
Kings and the Shlls, has little to do with a worship
of nature or of Aryan Devas who might be called
spirits or agents of nature, but we may in future take
it as a fact that the religious ideas which lay far
away behind Confucius were decidedly naturalistic,
though the Chinese always retained their primitive
belief in the one Supreme Lord, Tien, Heaven, or Ti,
Lord, as a preservative against every trace of poly-
theistic infection.

Confucianism was certainly the last religion for
which we should have expected a naturalistic back-
ground. It is so simple and dry, full of truisms
and quaint observations, but free from all poetry,
free from everything supernatural and miraculous,
whether concerning the origin of man, or the inter-
course between God and man, or the life of man
after death. On all these things Confucius considers
it next to madness to speculate or to assert anything

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positively. In fact, it has been doubted whether
this ancient and widely spread system deserves to
be called a religion at all, and as we understand
that name, no doubt, religion is not quite the name
for the doctrines of Confucius. His chief object is
to inculcate good behaviour, propriety, unselfishness,
virtue, but as to revelation or anything revealed, as
to miracle, and even as to a priesthood, he is per-
sistently silent.

There are, however, many things in his teaching
which a Christian could honestly accept. The golden
rule of Christianity : ‘All things whatsoever you would
that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them,’
occurs again and again in the Kings. What is now
called altruism Confucius called reciprocity, as when
Tsze-Kung is introduced, asking if there is not one
word Which may serve as a rule of practice for all
one’s life, he is answered by Confucius, ‘ Is not
reciprocity such a word? What you do not want
done to yourself, do not do to others.’ And again,
in the Analects, V. ii : ‘ What I do not wish men to
do to me, I also wish not to do to men.’ It seems
rather a nice distinction when Dr. Legge says that
Confucius only forbids men to do what they feel to
be wrong and hurtful, while the Gospel commands
men to do what they feel to be right and good.

I confess this savours a little of the missionary rather
than the historian of religions. If we must find
a difference, it seems to me rather to lie in that
Confucius cites no authority, sacred or profane, in
support of his rule, while Christ appeals to the Law
and the Prophets. This is a peculiarity, perhaps a
defect, that runs through the whole of Confucius’s

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271

teaching. If he were asked by whose authority he
taught, he would find it difficult to answer, except
by appealing, as he always does, to antiquity.

One may discover some of the old belief in nature,
in the teaching of Confucius to act like nature, to
obey the Will of Heaven, and to submit to nature’s
laws, also to look upon man as part of nature. But
this would hardly suffice as a basis for morality,
whether in a family or in the State. He declines all
metaphysics, but as he pei'ceived an unostentatious
working of perfect wisdom in all parts of nature, he
believed that there was a Power ruling the world, and
this was what he meant by the Will of Heaven. But
he went no further. Everything infinite and super-
human, too, was looked upon by him as incompre-
hensible to a finite and human mind. He did not
deny a God, or a future life, but toiling among such
metaphysical uncertainties seemed to him worse than
useless. What seemed to him certain was man and
his perfectibility on earth. For this he strove by
every word he said and by every deed he did. Death
had nothing terrible for him, as little as birth. It
was but a part of the working of Nature, and, as
such, regular and beneficent like all her works. He
could not admit anything miraculous, for everything
supernatural or against the laws of nature seemed to
him a slur on the wisdom of the Will of Heaven,
though it might rest on the testimony of ever so
many persons, ancient or modern. The ways of
heaven and earth, he said, are without any doubleness,
and produce things in a manner that is altogether
unfathomable.

When Confucius enters upon ethics and politics he

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LAST ESSAYS.

explains how every individual should first of all
improve himself and then try to improve the family
and the State. The foundation of a State is, according
to him, Filial Piety, and this forms the constant sub-
ject of his discourses, and of the discourses of other
sages preserved by him. Some people have imagined
that the origin of filial piety, as a sacred duty, is to be
found in the worship paid to ancestors, which in China
ranked next to the worship of God. But the question
is, which came first, the filial piety shown to living
parents or the worship paid to ancestors 1 Confucius
himself declares : ‘ The services of love and reverence
to parents when alive, and those of grief and sorrow
for them when dead, these discharge completely the
fundamental duty of living men.’ The filial piety,
or Hsiao , is represented by a very ancient written
sign, consisting of the symbols of an old man supported
by his son. Confucius explains what is meant by
filial piety.

‘In his general conduct,’ he says, ‘he manifests to them the
utmost reverence; in his nourishing them, his endeavour is to
give them the utmost pleasure ; when they are ill he feels the
greatest anxiety ; in mourning for them when dead he exhibits
every demonstration of grief ; in sacrificing to them he displays
the utmost solemnity. When a son is complete in these five things
he may be pronounced able to serve his parents.’

He then, goes on and describes the result of such
filial piety : ‘ He who thus serves his parents will, in
a high situation, he free from pride.’

There is one book that treats entirely of Hsiao, or
filial piety, and which on account of its age and its
authority has received the name Hsiao-Hing. If we
possess the same book of which Confucius speaks, it
would be one of the oldest classics in China. Confucius

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

27 3

said, as we are told : 1 My aim is seen in the Ghhun
fs ew (Spring and Autumn, a chronicle of events from
b. c. 721 to 480), my rule of conduct is in the Hsido-
King It was destroyed no doubt in the persecu-
tion of the Emperor Chhi-Hoang-Ti, when that
emperor in 213 B. c. issued his edict1 that all the old
classical books should be consigned to the flames,
except those belonging to the great scholars in the
service of the State, and the Yih-King, which was
for the purpose of divination and conjuring. For-
tunately that emperor died four years after the issuing
of his edict, and though his orders seem to have been
most effectively carried out, yet much was saved by
copies being hidden and by individuals whose memory
seems to have been as wonderful as the memory of the
Brahmans in India. In China a new dynasty, that of
the Han, began in the year 202 B. c., and in 191 b. c.
the edict for the destruction of all books was formally
repealed. It is true that later on a formidable opponent
of the new dynasty of Han carried on the work of
destruction during three months, and that many
palaces and public buildings were at that time de-
stroyed by fire. But even from that persecution the
literary treasures of China are said to have escaped
unscathed, and with regard to the Hsido-King, the
book on Filial Piety, the Catalogue of the Imperial
Library prepared immediately before the commence-
ment of our era attests the existence of two copies
containing the old text which had belonged to the
family of Confucius. There are, however, two texts
of the Hsido-King in existence — the longer or older,
and the modern or shorter text — and there has been

1 See Legge, Life of Confucius , p. 8.

II.

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LAST ESSAYS.

much controversy among native scholars as to the
age and genuineness of these two texts. That classic
represents itself as containing the conversations between
Confucius and one of his disciples, and it makes little
difference to us whether these conversations were
written down by that disciple himself or by his dis-
ciples again. The doctrines contained in the book
are the doctrines of Confucius, as they may be gathered
from the five Kings and from the Shus, and they
certainly give us the most primitive and simple ideas
of the political philosophy of China that can well be
imagined.

We are told in the beginning of the book that
Confucius was once sitting unoccupied, and that one
of his most distinguished disciples was sitting by in
attendance on him. Then the master said, ‘ Shan,
the ancient kings had perfect virtue and an all-
embracing rule of conduct, through which they were
in accord with heaven. By the practice of it people
were brought to live in peace and harmony, and there
was no ill-will between superiors and inferiors. Do
you know what it was ? The whole world has
been looking for that secret, without as yet having
found it.’

No wonder, therefore, that the disciple, Shan, rose
from his mat and said, ‘ How should I, who am so
devoid of intelligence, be able to know this ? ’

Then the master said, ‘ It was Filial Piety. Filial
piety is the root of all virtue and the stem out of
which grows all moral teaching. Sit down again and
I will explain the subject to you. Our bodies, to
every hair and bit of skin, are received by us from
our parents, and we must not presume to injure or

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275

wound them ; this is the beginning of filial piety.
When we have established our character by the
practice of filial piety, so as to make our name famous
in future ages and thereby glorify our parents, we
have reached the end of filial piety. It commences
with the service of parents ; it proceeds to the service
of the ruler ; and it is completed in the establishment
of character.5

We see already from these introductory remarks
what Confucius is aiming at. Looking at the family
as the unit of political life, he holds that organizations
of all political bodies can be built up with these units,
and that if children have once learnt to discharge
their duties to their parents, they will have learnt
how to treat their superiors in larger political associa-
tions, and to show proper respect to their rulers in
Church and State. Peace and harmony will be pre-
served, and those who honour their father and mother
will, in the language of the Old Testament, live long ;
that is, live long in peace in the land which God has
given them.

Confucius then proceeds to show how filial piety
should pervade all classes, from the common people to
the very Son of Heaven ; that is, the Emperor.

The common people must follow the course of
heaven (in the revolving seasons) ; that is to say, they
must observe the order of the heavenly signs for the
purpose of agriculture, or, as he expresses it, they must
distinguish the advantages afforded by different soils,
be careful in their conduct and economical in their
expenditure, in order to nourish their parents. This
is the filial piety of the common people.

Inferior officers show their filial piety in serving

276

LAST ESSAYS.

their fathers and loving their mothers, and in serving
their rulers and reverencing them. Love is what is
chiefly rendered to mothers, reverence to the rulers,
and both love and reverence to fathers. When they
serve their ruler with filial piety they are loyal, and
when they serve their superiors with reverence they
are obedient, and when they never fail in this loyalty
and obedience in serving those above them they are
able to preserve their emoluments and to maintain
their sacrifices. This is the filial piety of the inferior
officers.

Chief ministers and great officers, if controlled by
filial piety, must never presume to wear robes other
than those appointed by the laws of ancient kings,
nor to speak words other than those sanctioned by
their speech, nor to exhibit conduct other than that
exemplified by virtuous ways (morality). When these
things are all as they should be they can preserve
their ancestral temples. This is the filial piety of the
ministers and great officers.

But the Princes of States also, nay the Emperor
himself, or the Son of Heaven, as he has been called
ever since the Shang dynasty, have the duties of
filial piety to fulfil. If he loves his parents he will
not dare to incur the risk of being hated by any man
or being contemned by any man. When the Son of
Heaven has carried to the utmost the service of his
parents, the lessons of his virtue will affect all the
people and he will become a pattern to all within
the four seas.

Well may the disciple exclaim after this : * Immense
indeed is the greatness of filial piety’ ; while Confucius
adds : Yes, filial piety is the constant course of Heaven,

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA. 277

the righteousness of earth and the practical duty of
man. Heaven and earth invariably pursue that course,
and the people take it as their pattern. The ancient
kings imitated the brilliant luminaries of Heaven, and
acted in accordance with the varying advantages
afforded by the earth, so that they were in accord
with everything under Heaven, and in consequence
their teachings without being severe were successful,
and their government without being rigorous secured
perfect order.

This was probably what Confucius meant by acting
in harmony with Heaven or the will of Heaven, and
by the people being led by the rules of propriety
and by music. The order of nature was the proto-
type to be imitated by rulers and subjects, every one
proceeding in order like the heavenly luminaries, every
one holding his own place and not interfering with
those before or behind him, but showing respect and
love to all. * In such a state of things,’ as Confucius
says, parents, while alive, reposed on the glory of
their sons, and when sacrificed to after death, their
disembodied spirits enjoyed their offerings ; disasters
and calamities did not occur ; misfortunes and re-
bellions did not arise.

All this may be called very primitive, whether
from a political or from an ethical point of view.
Yet the frequent appeals to the happiness enjoyed by
the people under sovereigns imbued with the prin-
ciples of filial piety, as laid down in the Hsiao-King
by Confucius, show that in ancient times they proved
successful in maintaining peace and order, and this is
more than can be said of many more recent systems
of policy and ethics. It is impossible here to give larger

278

LAST ESSAYS.

extracts from the Hsido-King, but those who care
for these early attempts at political science will come
across many things worthy of consideration in the
third volume of my Sacred Boohs of the East, where
they will find a complete translation of the Hsido-
King, and likewise of the Shll-King and Shi-King,
while later volumes contain the Yih-King (vol. xvi),
the Le Ke, or the Rules of Propriety (vols. xxvii and
xxviii), and the Texts of Taoism (vols. xxxix and xl),
all translated by my friend, the late Professor Legge.
Anyhow, when one reads these books, however justly
they may be suspected of representing ideals rather
than realities, one begins to doubt whether the believers
in evolution are right in supposing that all evolution
and all development proceeded from the less perfect
to the more perfect, from the ape to the savage, from
the savage to the sage, or whether there was not in
China also from time to time a reculer , let us hope,
however, pour mieux sauter 1.

2. Taoism.

The next home-grown religion in China is Taoism,
ascribed to Lao-tze. Of him and of his life, if we
exclude mere legends, even less is known than of
Confucius. Some have indeed gone so far as to deny
his existence altogether, and though his reported

1 Confucius is the Latinized form which Roman missionaries
gave to the Chinese name Kong-fu-tze, i. e. the venerable teacher
Kong. It is a pity that they did not adopt a similar latinized
name for Lao-tze, calling him Laocius. But they did not take
much notice of that philosopher, who therefore became known to
the world under his Chinese name only.

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279

interview with Confucius has been generally con-
sidered as establishing once for all the historical
character of both these sages, even that meeting,
fixed as having taken place about 517 b. c., might well
be the product of tradition only. Something like it
has happened, indeed, to most founders of religion.
Tradition adds so many fanciful and miraculous
traits to the real story of their lives that, like a tree
smothered and killed by ivy, the subject of all these
fables, the stem round which the ivy clusters, becomes
almost invisible, and seems at last to be fabulous
itself. Still the trunk must have been there, and
must have been real in order to serve as the support
of that luxuriant ivy. It is said, for instance, of
Lao-tzfi that his mother bore him for seventy-two
years, and that, when he was born at last, in 604 B.C.,
he had already white hair. Is it not palpable how
this tradition arose1? Lao-tze was the name given
to him, and that name signifies Old Child, or Old
Boy. This name being once given, everything else
followed. He was born with white hair, and spoke
words of wisdom like an old man. Even the very
widely spread idea that the fathers of these wonderful
heroes were old men recurs in this instance, for the
father of Confucius also was said to have been well
stricken in years. But, after all, the parents and
what was fabled or believed about them in China
are nothing to us. What we want to know is what
the Old Boy thought and taught, and this is what we
find in the Tdo-teh-King. Nor does it help us much
if we read of the modern state of Taoism, in which the
sublime ideas of Lao-tz^ seem entirely swamped by
superstitions, jugglery, foolish ceremonies, and idolatry.

280

LAST ESSAYS.

On the contrary, we shall have to forget all that
Taoism has become in later times, and what it is at
the present day, if we want to understand the ideas of
the old philosopher. We are told that at present
those who profess Taoism belong to the lowest and
most degraded classes of society in China, nor do we
ever hear of the spreading of Taoism beyond its
national frontiers or of any attempts to spread it
abroad by means of missionary efforts. In fact, we
can hardly doubt that Taoism, in this respect at least,
resembled Confucianism. Both were home-grown
national forms of religious and mythological faith,
both spiang up from a confused and ill-defined mass
of local customs and popular legends, sacrificial tradi-
tions, medical and hygienic observances— with this
difference, however, that the teaching of Confucius
acted from the very first prohibitively against the
mass of existing superstitious beliefs and practices of
the common people, and laid the strongest stress on
ethical and political principles, excluded polytheism
and all talk about transcendent matters, while Taoism
excluded little or nothing, but was ready to accept
whatever the people had believed in for centuries,
only adding what must always have been a philo-
sophy first, and a religion afterwards — the belief in
Tao. In 140 B.c. a learned scholar of the name of
Tung Chung-shi recommended to the Emperor Wu
that all studies not found in the six departments of
knowledge and in other arts sanctioned by Confucius
should be strictly forbidden, so that the people should
know what to follow, and that the depraved and per-
verse talk which was heard at that time should cease
once for all. But the Emperor, though aware of the

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281

evil, threw himself for many years into the arms of
the charlatans, mostly Taoists, much as he afterwards
repented of his folly. What made Taoism so popular
was that the Taoists preferred to practise ever so
many of the black arts. They professed to chaDge
baser metals into gold, to brew the elixir of immor-
tality, to produce manifestations of the spirits, and to
perform similar tricks which have found credence at
all times and in all countries amons; the ignorant
masses, sometimes even at Courts and among people
who ought to have known better.

When Confucius warned his people to keep aloof

from spirits, this warning, which looks at first very

like a warning against, all spiritual beliefs, may

possibly refer to the motley worship of the so-called

spirits only, with which Taoism was deeply infested.

It may be said that Confucianism was later than

Taoism, and could therefore avoid the dangers on

which Taoism was wrecked. But the background

of the two religions was evidently the same. Only

while Confucius tried to discard whatever seemed to

him hurtful, Taoism seems never to have been strong

enough for so unpopular a task. We ought not to

make Lao-tze, the author of Taoism, responsible for

the national substratum of his religion, nor for the

rubbish that entered into its construction. Thouo-h

he was raised in later times to be one of the
chief gods and spirits of the Taoists, Lao-tzd him-
self was far too sensible to aspire to such an
honour.

The corruption of Taoism, owing to the vitiated
elements which it had admitted into its system, seems
to have been very rapid. If we look first at the

282

LAST ESSAYS.

degraded state of those who profess Taoism in China,
and examine the popular beliefs and the public wor-
ship in which they rejoice, we can hardly trust our
eyes when we come to read the Tdo-feh-King, the
only book which Lao-tze has left behind, and on which
his real teaching, whether we call it philosophy or
religion, was founded. In early times, and even in
China itself, Lao-tzd is spoken of as the superior of
Confucius in his sublime flights of speculation and
fancy. Certainly Confucius must have been a man
of great humility. He is said to have exclaimed,
‘ Alas ! there is no one that knows me !’ adding, how-
ever, ‘ But there is Heaven — He knows me.’ A man
who can say that must be a man of independent
thought and of a strongly marked religious character.
But, though he dare not admit it himself, he was known,
and was known even during his life-time, as one of
the so-called ‘ superior men,’ far superior even to Yao
and Shun, the phoenix among birds, the T'ai moun-
tain among mounds and ant-hills. Still, as he was
the younger, being thirty-five when Lao-tzd was eighty-
eight years of age, Confucius, having heard of Lao-tze’s
fame, went to see him in 517 B.C. Lao-tzd received
Confucius with a certain air of superiority, but Con-
fucius, after his interview with Lao-tzd was over, was
evidently full of admiration for the old philosopher.
He is reported to have said to his own disciples :
1 1 know how birds can fly, fishes swim, and animals
run ; but the runner may be snared, the swimmer
hooked, and the flyer shot by the arrow. But there
is the dragon ; I cannot tell how he mounts on the
wind through the clouds and rises to heaven. To-day
I have seen Lao-tze, and can only compare him to the

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283

dragon1.’ The followers of Confucius and Lao-tzd,
however, did not remain united in friendship and
admiration, like their respective teachers. In the first
century, as Sze-ma Chien relates, the believers in Tao
had become a separate school, opposed to the adhe-
rents of Confucius and opposed by them. Many more
legends gathered round Lao-tze. He was deified, he
was believed to have existed in a former life, and,
what has often been repeated, as pointing to Christi-
anity, he was believed to have predicted a coming
teacher — a teacher that would come from the west.
This is, no doubt, a curious prophecy ; the difficulty
is only to find out at what time it arose and by whom
it was first mentioned. The earlier legend speaks
only of Lao-tzd as leaving his home in disgust and
going to the north-west. Here the keeper of the gate
is said to have asked him to compose a book. He
agreed, wrote the book, the Tdo-teh-King, and then
proceeded alone on his distant journey and disap-
peared, no one knowing whither he had gone and
how he died.

But, though we are told that during all his life he
had been teaching the doctrine of the Tao, it seems
almost impossible, in spite of all that has been written
on the subject by Chinese and European savants, to
say what Tao really meant. We have now many
translations of the Tdo-teli-King, but even they do not
throw much real light on this n^sterious being. It
is clear, however, that Tao was not a man, nor a visible
or palpable thing. But if it was a concept, we ask
again whence that concept arose, what it compre-
hended, and how it ever sprang up in the mind of

1 Legge, Religion of Chinn , p. 206.

284

LAST ESSAYS.

man. We are accustomed to find concepts in every
language to which there is no word corresponding in
other languages. Concepts such as revelation and
inspiration mean very different things in different
languages, and there is no word so difficult to render
into any language as Logos, the Word. Still, we can
generally define the category of thoughts to which
such names belong ; but even that seems impossible
with Tao. Hence some philosophers — and it is clearty
a subject for philosophers rather than for Chinese
scholars — speak with open contempt of Lao-tze and
his Tao, while others, particularly those who first
discovered the Tao-teh-King and translated it, are
rapturous in their admiration of that ancient philo-
sophy. The first who published a translation of the
Tdo-teh-King was Remusat, a member of the French
Institute, and certainly a man thoroughly inured to
the hardest philosophical speculations. In 1825
Remusat wrote in the first volume of his Asiatic
Miscellanies , p. 8 :■ —

‘The current traditions regarding this philosopher (Lao-Tseu), the
knowledge of which is due to the missionaries, were not of
a character to encourage the first inquirers. The study of his
book altered all the ideas which I had been able to form about
him. Instead of the originator of a set of jugglers, professors of
the black art, and astrologers, who seek for immortality and the
means of raising themselves through the sky to heaven, I found a
genuine philosopher, a single-eyed moralist, an eloquent theologian,
and a subtle metaphysician. His style has the sublimity of the
Platonic, and also, we must say, something of its obscurity. He
produces quite similar thoughts in nearly the same words. More-
over, his whole philosophy breathes mildness and goodwill. His
condemnation is directed only against hard hearts and violent men.
His opinions on the origin and constitution of the universe show
neither ridiculous fables nor a scandalous want of sense ; they bear
the stamp of a noble and high spirit : and in the sublime views

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285

which they disclose show a remarkable and incontestable agreement
with the teaching which the schools of Pythagoras and Plato
exhibited a little later V

Professor Legge uses much more sober language
when speaking of the Tdo-teh-King, yet he also calls
it a KTrjga es det. In Remusat’s words we see an
expression of the same surprise of which we spoke
just now, and which everybody must feel who com-
pares the so-called religion of the Taoists in China
with the Tdo-teh-King of their founder. The two are
different things, though they go by the same name.
Professor Legge, who knew the Chinese mind and
Chinese literature in all its branches, from long
familiarity with China and the Chinese, seems far
less surprised at this treasure found in ancient China.
It may be true, as Legge and other Chinese scholars
maintain, that Taoism, though known long before the
introduction of Buddhism into China in the first
century after our era, became an established religion
with a fully developed system of ceremonial worship,
chiefly through the influence of that foreign religion.
It may have been a perfectly natural wish on the
part of the followers of Lao-tzd, who stood in a kind
of opposition to the orthodox and conservative Con-
fucianism, to assume a more settled form, and particu-
larly to adopt something like the elaborate worship
of the Buddhists, with their monasteries, their public
processions, their vestments, their statues and idols.
If Professor Legge is right, the existing religion of
Taoism was begotten by Buddhism out of the old

1 See also Memoire sur la Vie et les Opinions de Lao-Tseu, Philosophe
Chinois du Vlme Siecle avant noire Ere, qui a professe les Opinions attribuees
communement a, Pythagore, a Platon et d leurs Disciples. Paris, 1823.

286

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superstitions of the country, and it was not till after
statues of Buddha had been brought to China that
statues of Confucius and other great men of the past
began to be made, nor was any image ever fashioned
of the Confucian God of the old classics1. But now,
if you go into a Taoist temple, you are immediately
confronted by three vast images, looking exactly like
Buddhas. They are, however, the great gods of the
Taoists, the three Pure Holy Ones — the Perfect Holy,
the Highest Holy, and the Great Holy One. They
actually are called Shang-Ti, the Confucian name
for God, the Supreme Lord. The second is meant for
Lao-tzd, here called the Most High Prince Lao. The
third is the Gemmeous sovereign God, who is sup-
posed to exercise control over the physical world and
to superintend all human affairs. Many legends are
told about these three Pure or Holy Ones. The first,
who is also called P'an-ku, is the first man who
opened up heaven and earth. He is sometimes repre-
sented as a shaggy, dwarfish Hercules, developing
from a bear rather than from an ape, and wielding an
immense hammer and chisel, with which he is break-
ing the chaotic rocks and fashioning the earth. There
are ever so many legends told about the third of these
popular idols, who is represented as the ruler of the
world. Yet the original of that idol, too, is said to
have been a magician of the family of Lao-tzd, and
the story is told of him that he and another magician,
called Lift, rode a race on waggons up to heaven,
a novel position for the ruler of the world to find
himself in. This is a fair specimen of the vulgar
Taoism, with its grotesque fancies and its unbeautiful
1 Religion of China, p. 167.

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287

art. It is true that Buddhism also had a very fancy-
ful mythology and collection of legends, but we can
generally discover a meaning in them, while in Tao-
ism everything is a kind of dumb show. The three
Precious Ones of Buddhism, often represented by
statues and images, are said to be emblematic of the
intelligence personified by Buddha, the Law, and the
Community or Church, or, as the people thought,
the Buddha Past, Present, and To Come. We shall
see that the Buddhism which found most favour in
China was not only the purely ethical and at the same
time historical Buddhism of India, as represented in
Pali, the Triphaka, the so-called Hinayana, the Little-
go, but the Mahayana, the Great-go, a system of
Buddhism the origin of which is still enveloped in
great obscurity, and which may have borrowed from
tribes beyond the Himalayan chain as much as it
gave to them. Neither Buddha, who died 477 b. c.,
nor Confucius, who died 478 B.C., nor Lao-tzd, the
older contemporary of Confucius, cared about any of
these purely external embellishments of religion. In
one instance we can almost watch an exchange of
opinion between Confucius and Lao-tzd. All three
agreed on the principle that we should treat others
as we wish that they should treat ourselves. Lao-tzd,
however, went even a step beyond, and commanded
his followers to return good for evil. One of the
school of Confucius, we are told, heard this maxim,
and, being puzzled by it, consulted the master. Con-
fucius thought for a moment and then replied, ‘ What,
then, will you return for good ? ’ And his decision
was, ‘Recompense injury with justice, and return
good for good!’ Lao-tzd’s sentiment may seem more

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sublime, but the answer of Confucius was certainly
more logical.

But what is Tao which Lao-tze proclaimed, and on
which the whole of his philosophy was founded ? If
we once know this, we shall be able to judge for our-
selves whether, as Samuel Johnson observes, this
ancient book contains really ‘ water from unseen wells
and life from original fountains,’ or whether what we
find there is muddy water only, of which the very
spring, the Tao, defies all accurate definition, nay,
even translation. If we take the title Tao-teh-King
we find that King means ‘ book,’ particularly a classi-
cal book ; Teh means ‘ virtue ’ or ‘ outcome ’ ; and it
we consult Lao-tze himself, he says, ‘ If I were sud-
denly to become known, and (put into a position) to
conduct (a government according to the Great Tao),
what I should be most afraid of would be a boastful
display. The great Tao (or way) is very level and
easy ; but people love the by-ways.’ This shows,
though not very clearly, that with him Tao was the
straight path, the right tendency ; but in what sense
he meant this straight path to be understood remains
uncertain. The old Latin translator uses Ratio.
Remusat says, ‘ Ce mot me semble ne pas pouvoir etre
bien traduit si ce n’est par le mot Aoyos dans le
triple sens de souverain Etre, de Raison et de Parole.’
In many respects Logos would certainly seem a good
substitute for Tao, though not in all. If, however,
Professor Legge thinks it could not be rendered by
Logos, because it had a father and was believed to
have pre-existed, he should have remembered that
some early theologians claimed pre-existence for the
Logos also, though conceived as the Son. He even

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289

seems to admit that people would not be far wrong
if they took Tao in the sense of Nature, when by
a metonymy of the effect for the cause the word is
used for the Creator, Author, or Producer of things, or
for the powers that produce them. Dr. Hardwick,
again, took Tao for an abstract cause, or the initial
principle of life and order. Watters and Balfour agree
that Tao is best matched by the word ‘ Nature,’ if used
in the sense of Natura naturans, while all that exists
(in Chinese, Tien te waoo wu) denotes the Natura
naturata. Still Professor Legge is not quite satisfied
with any of these renderings, because the Tao was not
of a visible nature, but was the quiet, orderly course,
the unseen but admirable method, in which nature
developed into that Kosmos which we see.

Strauss boldly translates Tao by God ; but this,
again, is impossible, because there is very little that
is personal in the Tao, and the old name for God was
there already in Chinese — namely, Tien. When Lao-
tze says, ‘ I do not know whose son Tao is ; it might
seem to be before God,’ he certainly seems to give
a personal character to Tao ; but even in this con-
nexion ‘ son ’ has been understood to mean no more
than product, while what seems to be before God
cannot well be the son of God. Again he says, ‘ Before
there were heaven and earth, from of old, there It
was, securely existing. From It came the mysterious
existence of spirits ; from It the mysterious existence
of God (Ti).’ What wonder that missionaries thought
they discovered in the Tdo-teh-King sanctissimae
Trinitatis et Dei incarnati mysteria ? It is very
strange that, different as these various renderings of
Tao are, yet we find while reading the various trans-

II. u

290

LAST ESSAYS.

lations of the T do -t eh- Ki n g that now one, now the
other, seems to fit best into the context of words and
the context of thoughts with which the author is
dealing. Translators, however, seem to forget that
mere words, such as Nature, God, Reason, Logos, and
all the rest, require themselves a definition before
they can be declared adequate for the purpose of
translation. One thing seems quite clear — that in
the philosophical and religious development of early
humanity there is nothing that had the same origin
and the same development as the Chinese Tao. All
agree that it meant originally the path or course, and
that afterwards it came to mean something quite
different, such as nature, God, or reason, though they
do not explain by what stages this transition took
place.

But though there is no word and no concept in any
other language, the historical development of which
runs parallel with that of Tao, I venture to point out
one occurring in Vedic, though almost forgotten in
classical Sanskrit, which seems to me to fulfil those
conditions better than any other word. I mentioned
it years ago to Professor Legge, but, as he was un-
acquainted with the language and the growth of
philosophy of the Veda and the Upanishads, he was
afraid that my explanation would only be explaining
the ignotum per ignotius — a mere addition of a new
translation— without any addition of new light on the
hidden origin of the Tao. I see that I even mentioned
my idea in a note to my Lectures on the Origin of
Religion, that is to say, in 1878, p. 251. My con-
viction has, however, become stronger and strongei
the more I studied Lao-tz<j s Tdo-teh-King, and the

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291

more I watched the application of Tao to natural,
psychological, moral, and political developments, sup-
posed to have originated in and to be ruled by the
Tao. For it must not be forgotten that Tao rules,
or is meant to rule, not only in nature, but in the
government of States also, and in the actions of each
individual. One thing only I must guard against
at once — namety, the idea that I look upon Tao as
a Vedic idea, transferred in ancient times, like many
other things, from India to China. Not even among
the Buddhists of India does such an idea occur, though
there may possibly have been earlier communications
between India and China than we are aware of. The
parallelism between the Vedic and the Chinese courses
of thought need, therefore, prove no more than a
natural coincidence, showing, it may be, that the con-
ception of the Tao was by no means so peculiar to the
Chinese as it seemed to Chinese scholars h

Rita,, from ri, to go, would mean originally the
going, the moving forward, the path, particularly the
straight or direct path. Thus we read in the Rig-
veda, i. 105, 12, ‘The rivers go the .Rita’ — i. e. the
right way ; or, RV. ii. 28, 4, ‘ The rivers go the right
way of Varum.’ Here ‘.Rita’ may mean no more
than the right or proper way, and the same meaning
would apply when Varum and other gods are called
the guardians of Rita — that is, of the right way, or
of the right. But when Varum and Mitra and other
gods are said to be born of .Rita, to know the .Rita, or
to increase the .Rita, .Rita has evidently the meaning
of something prior to the gods, a something from

1 See what Le Page Renouf says about the Egyptian Ma&t
(. Hilbert Lectures, p. 169 et seq.).

U 2

292

LAST ESSAYS.

which even the gods may he said to proceed. The
Way is used in the sense of that which caused the
movement or gave the first impulse, and likewise the
first direction to all movement— the m vovv aKivrjTov, or
privium mobile — in fact, the very fao, as we shall
see. Rita, may first have been suggested by the
visible path of the sun and other heavenly luminaries,
but it soon left that special meaning behind, and came
then to signify movement and course in general — that
is to say, in a larger sense — including the movements
of sun and moon and stars, of day and night, of the
seasons and of the year. On the other hand Rita
came to mean the point from which a movement pro-
ceeded, the starting-point, or the cause of any move-
ment, more particularly of the great cosmic movement.
When the sun rises the path of Rita, is said to be
surrounded by rays, and it was used tor the place
from whence the movement originated, and sometimes
also of the originator of such movement. The sun is
actually called the bright face of .Rita. The dawn is
said to dwell in the abyss of Rita. The god Varuna
(Uranus) is introduced as saying, ‘ I supported the sky
in the seat of Rita,’ and later on Rita is conceived as
the eternal foundation of all that exists.

When Rita, or the path of Rita, had once been
conceived as the path on which the gods overpowered
the darkness of the night, it was but a small step foi
their worshippers to pray that they also might be
allowed to follow that right path. In this connexion
it is often doubtful whether we should translate the
path of Rita or the right path. And we can from
this point of view better understand how Rita, alter
meaning what was straight, right, and good, came to

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293

mean law. ‘ 0 Inclra,’ the god exclaims, RV. x. 133, 6,
‘ lead us on the path of i?ita, or on the right path,
over all evils.’

At all events, we can see now how many ideas may
and do cluster round this one word Rita,, with its
original concept of path changed into movement,
impulse, origin, disposition, tendency, bent, law, &c.
Divergent as these concepts are, they can all be shown
to converge towards one primitive concept, of some-
thing first perceived in the movements of the heavenly
bodies, day and night, summer and winter, and in the
end experience of the law and even the lawgiver that
rules the world and rules ourselves. When there are
no mythological gods, such as Agni or Indra, the God,
whether Tien or Varuna, became naturally the law
or the lawgiver. The mental process is the same,
however much the words may differ.

Anyhow we can clearly see from the Vedic word
Rita, that the ancestors of our race in India did not
only believe in divine powers, manifested in nature,
but that their senses likewise suggested to them the
concept of order and law as revealed in the daily
path of the sun, and of other heavenly bodies, in the
succession of day and night and of the seasons.

Let us now see whether the Chinese Tdo, the origin
of which, as a concept, has puzzled so many Chinese
scholars, may not be rendered intelligible by being
compared with the Vedic Rita,. Each by itself is
obscure, Rita, as well as Tao, but for all that they
may throw light on each other ; only we must re-
member that the one has grown up on the mental soil
of India, the other on that of China.

That Tao is not meant for a personal being, though

294

LAST ESSAYS.

it sometimes comes very near to it, may be gathered
from such passages as ‘ the Tao is devoid of action, of
thought, of judgement, of intelligence.’ When Lao-tze
speaks of the Tao in nature, it means nothing but the
order of nature. The Tao of nature is no doubt the
spontaneous life and action of nature ; it is that
which changes the chaos into a kosmos, and represents
the law and order visible in nature, in the growth of
animals and plants, in the course of the seasons, the
movements of the stars, in the birth and death of all
animals. In all of these there is Tao, an innate force,
sometimes also something very like Providence, only
not like a personal God. If water by itself finds its
level, runs lower by its own gravity as long as it can,
and then remains stagnant, that again is due to its
Tao, its inherent qualities, we should say, or its
character, its very being (svabhava), as Hindu philo-
sophers would call it.

So much for Tao in nature. As to the Tao in the
individual, who is considered a part of nature, it
becomes manifest in all actions which are spontaneous,
and, as Lao-tz^ requires, show no cause and no purpose.
If the individual acts as he acts because he cannot
help it, he acts in conformity with his Tao. He lets
himself go and act as his nature moves him. If the
heart is empty of all design and of all motives, then
the Tao has its free course. This leads to the glorifi-
cation of perfect quietude, and of allowing perfect
freedom to the Tao. Lao-tze actually maintains ‘ that
by laziness and doing nothing there is nothing that is
not done.’ ‘ All things,’ he adds, ‘ shoot up in spring
without a word spoken, and grow without a claim to
their production. They accomplish their development

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

295

without any display of pride, and the results are
reached without any assumption of ownership.’

So it is or should be with man, who, while the Tao
has free play, remains perfectly humble and never
strives. The water too is a pattern of humility. It
abases itself as low as it can and finds its lowest level.
Thus we read (p. 104) : —

‘ What makes a great State ? Its being like a low-lying, down-
flowing stream ; it becomes the centre to which tend all the small
States under heaven. To illustrate from the case of all females :
the female always overcomes the male by her stillness, and the
process may be considered a sort of abasement

On p. 52 Lao-tze says : —

‘The highest excellence is that of water. That excellence appears
in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving
to the contrary, the low place which all men dislike. Hence its
way is near to that of Tao.’

‘There are three precious things,’ Lao-tzd says,
‘ which I prize and hold. The first is gentle kindness,
the second is economy, the third is humility, not
daring to take precedence of others. With gentleness
I can be brave, with economy I can be liberal, not
presuming to take precedence of others. I can make
myself a vessel or means of the most distinguished
services.’

All this may be perfectly true ; the only question
is whether it can be obtained by simply letting the
Course (Tao) have free course, by being good-natured
without being aware of it, aye, as he says in con-
clusion, by loving even our enemies. He goes a step
further, and maintains that by following this course
men may acquire c mysterious power,’ may become
inviolable, enjoying freedom of all danger, even the
Tdo-teh-King, translated by Legge.

296

LAST ESSAYS.

risk of death. Poisonous insects will not sting him?
wild beasts will not seize him, birds of prey will not
strike him. This is, of course, sheer fatalism, and it
might seem that Tao could in this connexion be trans-
lated by fatum. And this is the point where a good
deal of the superstitious practices of the Taoists comes
in. They do not see the metaphorical significance of
these words, but profess by a symbolism of the breath
and other hypnotic practices to act as physicians and
to be able to brew even the elixir of life. Death does
not seem to exist for them as an extinction of life.
Anyhow, dying means to them no more than the
perishing of the body, while the soul is immortal.
A Taoist of the eleventh century writes : ‘ The human
body is like the covering of the caterpillar or the skin
of the snake, as occupying it but for a passing sojourn.
When the covering is dried up the caterpillar is still
alive, and so is the snake when the skin has decom-
posed and disappears. But he who knows the per-
manence of things becomes a sharer of the Tao, and
while his body may disappear his life will not be
extinguished.’

In this way the exoteric and the esoteric meaning
of Lao-tze’s doctrines show themselves, as professed
either by the vulgus profanum or by the sage.

We can easily imagine what this doctrine of the
Tao may become when applied to the government of
political society, though Lao-tzd certainly went beyond
our wildest imaginations. The ethics of political life
are the chief interest of Confucius, and they are so,
though in a different form, in the system of Lao-tze.
Confucius goes back to very primitive times when he
imagines that a State could be governed by Hsiao, or

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297

Filial Piety, but Lao-tze goes far beyond when he
looks upon Tao as the true principle of all govern-
ment. Confucius also speaks of the way of Heaven,
which we ought to follow. Both the ruler and the
ruled are to act without purpose, without striving, in
fact without any activity except what is suggested by
the Tao, perfect quietude and unselfishness. ‘ As soon
as a sage exercises government he would seek to
empty the hearts of his people from all desires, he
would fill their bellies, weaken their ambition, and
strengthen their hones. He would try to keep them
without knowledge, oppose the advancement of all
knowledge, and free them from all desires.’ One can
hardly trust one’s eyes, but this is Professor Legge’s
translation of the Tdo-teh-King, and I believe he may
be implicitly trusted. There are covert hits at the
Filial Piety preached by Confucius. It was only
when the great Tao method fell into disuse, and there
came in its room benevolence and righteousness, very
inferior to the Tao, and afterwards shrewdness and
sagacity, and at last hypocrisy, that Filial Piety was
considered a panacea for all defects of government.
‘ When harmony ceased to characterize the six nearest
relations of kindred there arose Filial Sons ; when
States and clans became involved in disorder loyal
ministers came into notice.’ Lao-tzfi’s remarks sound
almost like a satire on Confucius, but he repeats his
accusation, and says : ‘ When the Tao was lost goodness
appeared again as inferior to Tao. When goodness
was lost benevolence appeared. When benevolence
was lost righteousness appeared. When righteousness
was lost propriety appeared. Now, propriety is the
attenuated form of leal-heartedness and sincerity, and

298

LAST ESSAYS.

the commencement of disorder. Every member of a
State should act as the Tao or, it may be, his nature
compels him, and this Tao is supposed to be better
than goodness, benevolence, righteousness and pro-
priety.’ Knowledge, too, does not fare better. Not
to value men for their superior talent is the way to
keep people from contentious rivalry ; not to prize
articles difficult to obtain is the way to keep them
from stealing ; not to show them the example of
seeking after things that excite the desires is the way
to keep their hearts from disorder.

Lao-tzd seems to have believed that such a pai'a-
disiacal State once existed, and that there were rulers
then under whom their subjects simply knew that
they existed. They all said: ‘We are as we are
ourselves.’ The great object of the governors was
to keep people simple, and one only wonders how the
ancients ever forfeited such a paradise. Knowledge
seems to have been considered as the chief cause of
all mischief. £ The difficulty of governing the people
arises from their having too much knowledge ; and
therefore he who seeks to govern a State by wisdom
is a scourge to it, while he who does not seek to
govern it thereby is a blessing.’ It is but natural
that Lao-tzd should, on account of such sentiments,
have been looked upon as an enemy to all knowledge
and a believer in the blessings of ignorance. But we
ought not to forget that his description of what a
political system ought to be, or even had been, was
a Utopia only, and we should remember that in
another Paradise also the fruit of the tree of know-
ledge was a forbidden fruit. I cannot bring myself
to believe that a man of Lao-tze’s genius would have

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299

wished to revive that state of paradisiacal ignorance
and innocence in modern States, though it is certainly
true that superstitious ignorance flourished more
among the Taoists than real knowledge. Yet he says
in so many words : ‘ Though the people had boats
and carriages they should have no occasion to use
them. Though they had mail coats and sharp
weapons they should not don them. I would make
them return to the use of knotted cords (an important
passage, as showing the former use of knotted cords,
quippos, instead of written characters, in ancient
China also). They should think their coarse food
sweet, their plain clothing beautiful, their poor houses
places of rest, and their common ways places of
enjoyment.’

Much more is to be found in the Tao-teh-King as to
the power and the workings of Tao, but what has been
said may suffice for our purpose. We see in Taoism
a system of philosophy and religion, sometimes the
one, sometimes the other, which has sprung up on
purely Chinese soil, though at a later time it was
evidently far more influenced than Confucianism by
the newly introduced system of Buddhism. Taoism
and Confucianism both point back to an immeasurable
antiquity, and they certainly made no secret of having
taken anything that seemed useful from the treasures
or from the rubbish of ancient folklore that had accu-
mulated in times long before the days of Lao-tz^ and
Confucius. Those who have known the present class
of Tao priests and who have witnessed their religious
services form a very low opinion of a religion which
has lasted for twenty-four centuries, and, though
formerly professed by much larger numbers in China,

300

LAST ESSAYS.

is even now, while the number of its adherents is
considerably reduced, a powerful element for evil as
well as for good, in China. As an historical pheno-
menon it deserves the careful study of the historian,
if only to teach us how even a religion supported by
the State may do its work by the side of other religions
without the constant shouts of anathema to which we
are accustomed in other countries. No one seems
a heretic in the eyes of the Chinese Government ex-
cepting always the hated foreigner ; and while one
Taoist may grovel in the meanest religious practices
and another soar high into regions which even the
best disciplined of Christian philosophers hesitates to
venture into, the two will not curse each other as
infidels, but try to carry out the highest Christian
principle of loving our enemies, or at least of doing
justice to them.

3. Buddhism and Christianity.

The third of the State-supported, but often State-
persecuted religions of China is that of Fo, the
Chinese name for Buddha. The circumstances under
which the religion of Buddha was introduced from
India to China are matter of history ; and unless we
mean to doubt everything in Eastern history for
which we have not the evidence of actual eye-
witnesses, the introduction into China of Buddhist
teachers by the Emperor Mingti in the year 65 a.d.
has a perfect right to claim its place as an historical
event. It may be quite true that the fame of Bud-
dhism had reached China at a much earlier time.
A Buddhist missionary is mentioned in the Chinese

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301

annals as early as 217 B.C., and about the year
120 B. c. a Chinese general, after defeating some
barbarous tribes in the North of the Desert of Gobi,
is reported to have brought back among his trophies
a golden statue of Buddha. But it was not till the
year 65 a.d. that the Emperor Mingti gave practical
effect to his devotion to Buddha and his doctrines by
recognizing his religion as one of the State religions
of his large empire. It would seem most extraor-
dinary that the ruler of a large empire in which there
existed already two State religions should, without
being dissatisfied with his own religion, have sud-
denly asked the teachers of a foreign religion to settle
in his country, and there, under the protection of the
Government, to teach their own religion, the doctrine
of Buddha. The Chinese idea of religion was evi-
dently very different from our own. Religion was
to them giving good advice, improving the manners
of the people; and they seem to have thought that
for such a purpose they could never have enough
teachers and preachers. Legend may no doubt have
embellished the events that actually took place. No
wonder that visions seen by the Emperor in a dream
were introduced ; but even such visions would not
help us to explain, what certainly seems a most extra-
ordinary though real event in the history of the world,
the introduction of the Buddhist religion into China
and the rest of Central Asia. Soon after Mingti we
hear of Indian Buddhists who had gone to China and
brought with them MSS. and sacred relics. But even
that would be of little help ; for what could be more
different than Sanskrit and Chinese, the language of
the missionary and that of his Chinese pupils? The

302

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sacred canon of Buddhism— for at that time we know
of one only, the one written in Pali and reduced to
writing by Vattagamini in 8ob.c. — had not yet been
translated into Chinese, and at the time of the intro-
duction of Buddhism into China this canon would
seem to have been the only one accessible to Chinese
Buddhists ; and yet it is clear that the Chinese
depended far more on the Sanskrit than on the Pali
canon. The Emperor sent Tzai-in and other high
officials to India, in order to study there the language,
the doctrines, and the ceremonial of Buddhism. They
engaged the services of two learned Indians, Buddhists
of course, Matanga and Tchou-fa-lan, and some of the
most important Buddhist works were translated by
them into Chinese. Missions were sent from China
to India to report on the political and geographical
state of the country, but their chief object remained
always to learn the language, to enable Buddhist
missionaries to translate and generally to study the
work done by Buddhism in India. On the other
hand, Indian Buddhists were invited to settle in
China to learn the Chinese language — no easy task
for an Indian accustomed to his own language — and
then to publish, with the help of Chinese assistants,
their often very rough translations of the Buddhist
originals. In the catalogue of these translations,
those taken from Sanskrit texts preponderate evi-
dently over those taken from Pali. Yet we know
now, thanks chiefly to the labours of Bunyiu Nanjio,
in his catalogue of the Chinese Triphaka — which was
secretly removed from my library, and which, con-
sidering the notes it contained from the hands of
Bunyiu Nanjio and other Chinese scholars, was sim-

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303

ply invaluable — and from the researches of Takakusu,
that both texts, the Pali and the Sanskrit, were placed
under contribution by Chinese translators.

For about 300 years after the Emperor Mingti, the
stream of Buddhist pilgrims seemed to flow on unin-
terruptedly. The first account which we possess of
these pilgrimages refers to the travels of Fa-hian, who
visited India towards the end of the fourth cen-
tury a.d. The best translation of these travels is by
M. Stanislas Julien. After Fa-hian, we have the
travels of Hoei-seng and Song-yan, who were sent
to India in 518 by command of the Empress, with
a view to collecting MSS. and other relics. Then
follow the travels of Hiouen-thsang (629-645 a.d.).
Of these too we possess an excellent translation by
Stanislas Julien. One of the last and certainly most
interesting journeys is that of I-tsing, who travelled
in India from 671 to 695 a.d. Takakusu, a Japanese
pupil of mine, has rendered a real service to the study
of Sanskrit, more particularly to the history of San-
skrit literature in the seventh century A. D., by trans-
lating I-tsing’s Chinese memoirs into English.

These travels, lasting from the fourth to the seventh
century, give us some idea of the literary and religious
intercourse between China and India. Some of the
Chinese travellers made themselves excellent scholars
in Sanskrit, and were able to take an active part in
the religious congresses and public disputations held
every year in the towns of India. At the same time
the number of Buddhist monasteries in China is said
by Hiouen-thsang to have amounted in his time to
3,716. What is still a great puzzle is what became
of the thousands of Buddhist MSS. which we know to

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have been taken to China by Indian missionaries, for
the reception and preservation of which large and
magnificent public libraries were built by various
emperors, and which seem now to have entirely dis-
appeared from China. Many researches have been
made for them by friends of mine in China and Corea,
but all that could be found was one not very interest-
ing MS., the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time), which was
sent to the India Office. Of course there were in
China from time to time violent persecutions of Bud-
dhists, and during those scenes of violence monas-
teries were razed to the ground and many public
buildings burnt. Still, all hope should not be given
up ; and if China should ever become more accessible,
new investigations should be made wherever Bud-
dhist monasteries and settlements are known to have
existed, it being quite possible that a whole library of
Buddhist literature and ancient Buddhist MSS. may
still be recovered. What we want more particularly
is to learn, if possible, what caused the great bifurca-
tion of Buddhism into Hinayana and Mahayana, the
Little Way and the Great Way, or whatever transla-
tion we may adopt for these two schools. Both
systems are clearly Buddhistic, but they are in some
respects so different from one another that sometimes
we can hardly imagine that they had both the same
origin or that one was derived from the other. Long
passages in the books of the two schools are some-
times identically the same, but on certain points of
doctrine the two are often diametrically opposed. To
mention a few points only. The Buddhist of the
Hinayana, or the Pali canon, denies most decidedly
a personal soul and a personal God. The Mahayana

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

305

admits a personal God, such as Amitabha (Endless
Light), residing in the paradise of Sukhavati, and it
evidently believes in the existence of personal souls.
After death the souls enter into the calyx of a lotus,
and remain there for a longer or shorter time, accord-
ing to their merits, then rise into the flower itself
and, reclining on its petals, listen to the Law as
preached for them by Buddha Amitabha. A trans-
lation of the description of this paradise, Sukhavati,
was published by me for the first time in the S. B. E.,
vol. xlix. It is quite possible, as has been supposed,
that the absence of any information as to the fate of
the soul after death may have made the stories about
the paradise of Sukhavati particularly attractive both
to the followers of Confucius and to the original
Hinayana Buddhists. Still, it is difficult to believe
that this would have induced the Chinese to adopt
what was a foreign religion, even in its Mahayana
disguise. Nor could miracles such as Matanga, one
of the two missionaries who arrived first at the Court
of Mingti, is said to have performed, have had. suffi-
cient persuasive power to produce a ehange of religion
on a large scale among the inhabitants of China. It
is said that he sat in the air cross-legged and without
any support. But of what Yogin has not the same
been believed % It is quite possible that other miracles
also of the Indian Yogins made some impression on
the Chinese mind ; but all this leaves the recogni-
tion of Buddhism as a State religion, and the growth
of what may almost be called a new religious litera-
ture, entirely unexplained. The change of the early
Buddhism, Hinayana (the Small Way) into that of
Mahayana (the Great Way) has never, as yet, been
n. x

306

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satisfactorily accounted for. Some people think that
the Mahayana was so called because it led to a higher
goal, others that it was a way for a larger number, the
Small Way being so called, evidently by the seceders,
because it led to a lower goal or was followed by a
smaller number. Even the priority of the Small Way
to the Great Way is by no means admitted by the
supporters of the latter system. Chronology, in fact,
in our sense of the word, does not exist for the
Mahayana Buddhists, and where there are no histori-
cal records, fables spring up all the more readily.
Thus we are told that the founder of the Mahayana
system of Buddhism was Nagarguna; that he had
travelled to the South and North of India, and there
come across a race of men more or less fabulous, called
Nagas, i.e. Serpents ; that they possessed copies of the
canonical books of the Mahayana, and gave them to
Nagarguna. These Nagas are frequently mentioned, and
there may well have been a real race of men called
Nagas or Serpents ; but how they should have come
into possession of these books, written in Sanskrit, how
they should have hidden them, as we are told, in a large
lake, and produced them at the time of Nagarguna’s visit
has never been explained. Nagarguna is mentioned as
present at the fourth Buddhist council, that at Ga-
landhara, called by King Kanishka, at the end of the
first century a.d. This date, however, has been
very much contested. He is the fourth in the list of
Buddhist patriarchs ; but that list again is purely
imaginary, and for chronological purposes useless.
What seems certain is that he was a contemporary
of King Kanishka, a King of India, of Mongolian
rather than Aryan blood, whose coins give him an

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

307

historical background. He is called there Ivanerkes,
a Kuskana king, and his life must have extended
beyond the end of the first century of our era, say
a.d. 85-106. But all this does not help us towards
an explanation of the true origin of the Mahayana
Buddhism. We see no causes for a change in Bud-
dhism. no new objects that were to be obtained by
this reformation, if indeed it deserves to be called
by such a name. We cannot possibly ascribe the
elaboration of the new system of Buddhism to one
man, such as Nagarguna, nor does he put forward
any such claim. On the contrary, we are told that
the Mahayana books existed long before his time, and
were handed to him by the Nagas. Besides, where
did he find the disciples ready to follow him ? There
was no widespread discontent with the old Bud-
dhism, as far as we can judge. But the fact remains
that we find a new Buddhism with its canon written
in Sanskrit, and it was this Buddhism that found such
decided favour in China. It may in some respects
be called a more popular form of Buddhism, but its
highest speculations must have been at the same
time quite beyond the grasp of the multitude. It has
a kind of personal Deity ; it has saints in large num-
bers, and a worship of saints ; it has its future life
and a paradise which is described in the most attrac-
tive colours. But whatever we may think of it, the
Mahayana was at all events the Buddhism which
found favour in the eyes not only of the Chinese, but
of Tibet, Corea, Japan, and of the greater part of
Central Asia. While the Hinayana kept itself pure
in Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam, the Mahayana Bud-
dhism took possession, not only of China, but of

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Turkestan also, of the Uigurs in Hami and on the
iii. it is quite true that Asoka at the time of
the third council sent missionaries to Kashmir, Kabul,
and Gandhara, and it may have spread from there to
the countries on the Oxus, to Bucharia, nay even to
Persia. But the legend that a son of Asoka became
the first king of Khotan seems to have no historical
foundation. Khotan, no doubt, became the chief seat
of Buddhism till it was expelled from there by
Mohammedanism, but that is different from counting
a son of Asoka as tbeir first king. That Buddhism
had spread in Asia before its recognition by the
Emperor Mingti in China, is an impression that it
is difficult to resist. We saw already that a Buddhist
missionary is mentioned in the Chinese annals in
217 B. c., and that about the year 120 B. c. a Chinese
general brought back a golden statue of Buddha1. Is
that the golden Buddha who suggested to the Emperor
the golden Buddha in his famous dream ? Much still
remains obscure in these early conquests of Buddhism
in Central Asia, conquests never achieved by force, it
would seem, but simply by teaching and example ;
but the fact remains that Buddha’s doctrine took
possession, not only of China, but of adjacent
countries also.

Highly interesting as these conquests of Buddhism
outside of China are, what interests us at present is
not the reception which that religion met with outside
of China, but the reception which it received when
once introduced into the Middle Kingdom. We must
not imagine that when the Emperor had dreamt his
dream, and given his sanction to the introduction of
1 Koppea, Buddhism, ii. p. 33.

THE KELIGIONS OF CHINA.

309

Buddha’s religion into China, it was at once embraced
by thousands of people. Its progress was slow, and
it does not seem as if Confucianism had even approved
of it very hastily. Taoism, on the contrary, was
evidently very much attracted by Buddhism. It was
found that the two shared several things in common,
both in superstitions and in customs and ceremonial.
It has been supposed that the introduction of Buddhism
gave a certain impulse to Taoism, particularly in its
ecclesiastic constitution ; that Buddhism exercised, in
fact, the beneficial influence on Taoism which a rival
often exercises, and that yet the two rivals remained
better friends than might have been expected.

What may seem still more extraordinary are the
neighbourly relations, nay, the real sympathy, which
existed from the first arrival of Christian missionaries
in China, between them and the Buddhists. It is
true the Christian rebgion never became a State
religion in China, but there were times when it enjoyed
every kind of support from the Emperor and the
Imperial Court. The missionaries themselves, so long
as they did not concern themselves with political
questions, were looked upon by the Government as
useful teachers, not of morality only, but of several
sciences — particularly of astronomy and chronometry,
though this happened at a later time. European
watches proved excellent weapons for Christian mis-
sionaries, and the. regulation of the calendar was left
very much to them. It happened even that, when at
times they incurred the Imperial displeasure and had
to leave Pekin, all the clocks in China stopped, and
there was no one to mend them and to wind them up
again. It is still more extraordinary that at that

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early time already Chinese Emperors should have
discovered a number of coincidences between Chris-
tianity and Buddhism, but so far from approving of
a mixing up of the two, such as we often have seen
in our own time, should have protested solemnly
against all such attempts. Thus the Emperor Te-tsung
decided that the monastery of the Buddhists at Hsian -
fu and the monastery of Ta-tsin (Rome) are quite
different in their customs, and their religious practices
entirely opposed. Adam, a Christian monk, ought
therefore to hand down the teaching of Mishiho
(Messiah), and the Buddhist monks should propagate
the Sutras of Buddha. ‘ It is to be wished,’ he adds,
‘that the boundaries of the two doctrines should be
kept distinct, and that their followers should not
intermingle. The right must remain distinct from
the wrong, as the rivers Ching and Wei flow in
different beds.’ What will the so-called Neo-Buddhists
or Christian Buddhists say to this ? And yet at the
time of Adam or King-shing, at the time of the
Emperor Te-tsung, this intermingling of Buddhism
and Christianity was a fact the study of which has
been strangely neglected. Christian, chiefly N estorian,
missionaries were very active in China from the
middle of the eighth century1. Their presence and
activity there are mentioned not only in Chinese
books, but they are attested by the famous monument
of Hsian-fu, often called Segan-fu, or Slngan-fu, the
old capital of China. The monument had been erected
in the year 781 by the Nestorians who were settled
there, and who lived in a monastery of their own,
called by the Emperor the monastery of Ta-tsin, just

1 See Christianity in China, by James Legge, iSSS.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

311

as another Emperor called Christianity the religion of
Ta-tsin. In that monastery we see that Buddhists
and Christians lived together most amicably, and
even worked together, and were evidently not fright-
ened if they saw how on certain points their religious
convictions agreed. The Buddhists then seemed by
no means the Yellow Terror of which we have heard
so much of late. It was near Hsian-fu that a Nestorian
monument was seen among the ruins by early travellers,
and last in 1866 by Dr. Williamson. It was just as
it had been described by the people who unearthed it
in 1625; the principal portion of the inscription is in
Chinese, but there are also a number of lines in Syriac.
When that inscription was first published it was the
fashion to consider everything that came from mission-
aries abroad as forged : the very presence of Christian
missionaries in China in the seventh century A. D. was
doubted; but Gibbon, no mean critic, not to say sceptic,
writes in the forty-seventh chapter of his history

‘The Christianity of China between the seventh and thirteenth
centuries is invincibly proved by the consent of Chinese, Arabian,
Syriac, and Latin evidence. The inscription of Sighan-Fu, which
describes the fortunes of the Nestorian Church, from the first
mission in the year 636 a.d. to the current year 781, is accused
of forgery by La Crose, Voltaire, and others who become the dupes
of their own cunning whilst they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud.’

The doctrinal portion of that inscription does not
concern us much beyond the fact that it contains
nothing which a Nestorian missionary at that time
might not have said. It seems intentionally to avoid
all controversial topics, and it keeps clear of any
attacks on paganism, which would have been equally
out of place and dangerous. From the historical
portion and the signatures we learn that the first

312

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Nestorian missionary, called Olopun, arrived in China
in 635, that he was well received by the Emperor and
allowed to practise and teach his own religion by the
side of the three religions then already established in
China, that of Confucius, that of Lao-tzd, and that of
Fo or Buddha. These three religions are alluded to
in the Nestorian monument as ‘Instruction’ (Con-
fucianism), ‘the Way’ (Taoism), and ‘the Law’
(Dharma, that is, Buddhism), while Christianity is
simply spoken of as the ‘ Illustrious Doctrine.’ These
religions seem to have existed side by side in peace
and harmony, at least for a time. Christianity spread
rapidly, if we may judge by the number of mona-
steries built, as we are told, in a hundred cities. This
prosperity had continued with but few interruptions
till the year 781, when the monument was erected.
It must be remembered that during these two centuries
Christian doctrines were carried to Persia, Bactria,
probably to India also, by persons connected with
the Nestorian mission, and that about the same
time Chinese Buddhists, such as Hiouen-thsang (a. d.
629-45) and I-tsing (671-95), explored India, while
Indian Buddhists migrated to China to help in the
work of translating the sacred canon of the Buddhists
from Sanskrit into Chinese. We see, therefore, that
during these centuries the roads for intellectual, chiefly
religious, intercourse were open between India, Bactria,
Persia, China, and the West, and that all religions
were treated with toleration and without that jealousy
and hatred which we find in later times. There must
have been a certain camaraderie between Christian
and Buddhist missionaries in the monastery of Hsian-
fu — also called Si-gnan-fu, the present residence of

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

313

the Chinese Court, and possibly the future capital of
China — for we read in the travels of I-tsing, p. 169,
that a well-known Indian monk from Kabul named
Prary/ia translated a number of Sanskrit texts into
Chinese, and among them the Sha^paramita Sutra, as
may be seen in the catalogue of the Chinese Tripkaka,
published in 1883. Now it was in the monastery of
Ta-tsin, founded by Olopun, that this Buddhist monk
finished his translation of the Sha£paramita Sutra,
assisted by a priest from Persia. On the monument
of Hsian-fu the Chorepi scopus signed his name in
Syriac, and this is the very name of the fellow worker
of Pragma, or in Chinese King-ching. The case becomes
still more curious, for it is said that Adam at that time
did not know Sanskrit very well, and that Pra<y/?a
was not very familiar with Chinese, both therefore
availed themselves of a Mongolian translation of the
Sutra which they had undertaken to render into
Chinese; but as Pragma was not a good Mongolian
scholar either, the result seems to have been, as in the
case of several of the Chinese translations of Buddhist
texts, a complete failure. The Emperor Te-tsung, when
appealed to on the subject, declared that the translation
was indeed very rough and obscure, and it was at that
time that he expressed his disapproval of mixing up
Christianity and Buddhism. What is important to
us to know, whether the translation itself be correct
or incorrect, is the co-operation of Christian and
Buddhist missionaries in the monastery of Hsian-fu,
and probably in other monasteries also.

But while Christians and Buddhists shared in their
prosperity in China, they had also to share in their
adversity. Whenever the persecutions of the Bud-

314

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dliists in China began— and they were terrible and
frequent — the Christians shared their fate, with this
difference however, that while the Buddhists recovered
after a time, the Christians, having to be supplied
from their distant homes, were altogether annihilated
in China. While under the enlightened Emperor
Tai-tsung (627-49) the number of Buddhist mona-
steries in China seems to have been about 3,716 1, the
edict of the Emperor Won-tung reduced their number
considerably, and after the edict of Khang-hi few
Buddhists and hardly any Christian monasteries re-
mained in China.

It is carious, however, to see with what pertinacity
the Church of Rome and its various orders clung to
the idea that the East, and more particularly India
and China, should be won for the Roman Church.
After the Reformation particularly, the Roman See,
as well as the Dominicans, Franciscans, and above
all the Jesuits, seem never to have lost sight of the
idea that the ground which their Church had lost in
Europe should be reconquered in China. Already under
Benedict XII (1342-6) attempts were made to send
out again Christian missionaries to China, but they
soon shared the fate of the Nestorian Christians,
and in the sixteenth century, when Roman Catholic
missions were organized on a larger scale, no traces
of earlier Christian settlements seem to have been
forthcoming. Francis Xavier, who after his suc-
cesses in India and Japan was burning with a desire
to evangelize China, died in 1552, almost in sight
of China 2. Then followed Augustine monks under

1 Hiouen-thsang , p. 309.

2 See Canon Jenkins’s Jesuits in China, 1S94.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

315

Herrada, and Franciscans under Alfara. Both had
to leave China again after a very short sojourn there.
Then came the far more important missions of the
Jesuits under Ricci, who landed in 1581. They were
better prepared for their work than their predecessors.
Anyhow, they had studied the language and the
customs of the country before they arrived, and in
order to meet with a friendly reception in China they
arrived in the dress of Buddhist monks. They became
in fact all things to all men ; they were received with
open arms by the Emperor and the learned among
the mandarins. It was Ricci who made such pro-
paganda by means of his clocks ; but he did not
neglect his missionary labours, though it is sometimes
difficult to say whether he himself was converted to
Confucianism, or the Chinese to Christianity. He
wrote in Chinese a book called Domini Gaelorum
verci ratio. He adopted even the Chinese name for
God, Tien or Shang-Ti, and joined publicly in the
worship of Confucius. That was the policy of the
Jesuits in China, as it was their policy in India,
when about the same time Roberto de Nobili (1577-
1 656) 1 taught as a Christian Brahmin, adopting all
their customs and speaking even Sanskrit, being no
doubt the first European to venture on such a task.
The history of these missions is full of interest, but
it would require considerable space to touch upon
even the most salient points and the most marked
personalities. Many Chinese, particularly in the
higher classes, became Christians, and they thought
they could do so without ceasing to be Confucianists,
Taoists, or Buddhists. The Jesuits survived even the

1 See Science of Language, i. p. 209.

316

LAST ESSAYS.

Great Revolution in 1644, which brought in the
present Manchu dynasty, and one of them, the Father
Schaal, was actually appointed governor of the Crown
Prince, the son of Chun-ki. The widow of the Emperor
and her son allowed themselves to be baptized in
1630. In Europe people were full of enthusiasm for
China, and. many imagined that Christianity had
really conquered that vast empire. But a reaction
began slowly. Some missionaries, not Jesuits, became
frightened, and laid their complaints before the Pope
at Rome. Even at Rome the so-called Accommodation
Question became the topic of the day, and at last,
after various legates and Vicars Apostolic had been
sent to Pekin to report, and numerous witnesses had
been listened to as to murders, poisonings, and im-
prisonments of the various missionaries then settled
in China and striving each and all for supremacy, the
Papal See could not hesitate any longer, and had
at last to condemn the work of the Jesuits both in
China and in India. It is difficult for us to judge at
this distance of time. Certainly, Christian ideas had
gained an entrance into China, particularly among
the highest classes, and it was hoped that in time the
mere chinoiseries of their faith would be stripped off,
and true Christianity, relieved of its Chinese trappings,
would step forward in its native purity. How far
the Jesuits thought that they could safely go we may
learn from a list of doctrines and customs which the
Curia condemned as pagan rather than Christian.
Such things must have existed to account for their
official condemnation. The Pope declared he would
not allow the Chinese names for God, Tien and
Shang-Ti, but would recognize but one reading, Tien

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

317

Chu, i. e. the Lord of Heaven. He prohibits the tablets
then placed in many of the Christian churches inscribed
‘ Kien Tien ’ (Worship Heaven). The worship of
Confucius and of ancestors, that had been sanctioned
for a time on the strength of false information, was
condemned as pagan. Missionaries were distinctly
forbidden to be found at festivals and sacrifices con-
nected with his worship, and no tablets were allowed
to be erected in Christian churches that contained
more than the name of the departed. Such propo-
sitions as that Chinese philosophy, properly under-
stood, has nothing in it contrary to Christian law,
that the worship assigned by Confucius to spirits has
a purely civil and not a religious character, that the
Teh-King of the Chinese was a source of sound doctrine,
both moral and physical, were all condemned as
heretical, and the missionaries were warned against
allowing any Chinese books to be read in their schools,
because they all contained superstitious and atheistic
matter.

This of course put an end to the Christian propa-
ganda in China, and crushed all the hopes of the
Jesuits. The Roman Curia seem to have regretted
their having to take such severe measures against
their old friends. The missionaries struggled on for
a time ; but when the Emperors of China, their former
friends and protectors, began to take offence at the
Pope’s issuing edicts in their own empire, most of
the Christian missionaries were dismissed, because
they felt they had to obey the Pope more than the
Emperor. They were in consequence deprived of all
their appointments, some of them very lucrative and
influential, and expelled from China, and new arrivals

318

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were likewise subjected to very severe measures.
The persecutions of the Christians at various times,
and as late as 1747, 1805, 1815, 1832, seem to have
been terrible. The Emperors complained of lese-mcijeste
on the part of the Pope, who, as a foreign sovereign,
ought not to have issued edicts in the Chinese Empire.
The Emperors, in fact, knew very little what the
Pope really was, and the Popes looked upon the
Emperors as Chinamen, as pagan and half-savages.
The Pope, however, insisted on his right of jurisdiction
all over the world in all spiritual and ecclesiastical
questions, and the result was that the Christian Church,
so carefully planted and built up by the Jesuits,
crumbled away and became extinct in China. The
whole of that history, bristling with heroes, martyrs,
and saints, can be read in any of the histories of
Christian missions. We see clearly that what the
Chinese hated was not the teaching of Christ, but
the foreigners themselves who had come to preach
His doctrine, and who were making proselytes in
China. If the missionary was submissive he was
generally free to teach his doctrine, but the anti-
foreign sentiment came out at the same time with
unexpected strength, a sentiment so deeply engrained
in the Chinese mind that nothing but clocks and other
useful mechanical and scientific inventions found per-
manent favour with the Chinese. There is no passage
in their Kings prescribing hospitality and kindness to
the stranger within the gate. There is nothing even
about the sacrosanct character of envoys, though
embassies from and to China were of frequent occur-
rence. In the Li Ki, iii. ] 7, we read : ‘ At the frontier
gates, those in charge of the prohibitions examined

THE RELIGIONS OE CHINA.

319

travellers, forbidding such as wore strange clothes,
and taking note of such as spoke a strange language.’
So it has been and so it will be again and again in
China, unless the Foreign Powers are able to impress
the people with fear and respect. It was under the
protection of the European Powers that the missions
of the reformed churches began their work in China
at the beginning of this century ; but, trusting in that
protection, they seem on various occasions to have
provoked the national sensibilities of the Chinese, and
thus, particularly in the case of their native converts,
to have encouraged the Chinese to commit such
atrocities as those we have just been witnessing.
Although they could not possibly, like the Jesuits,
adapt themselves to the prejudices of the Chinese,
they seem to have given greater offence than in their
ignorance they imagined. To give one instance only.
The European missions would send out not only
married but unmarried ladies, and persisted in doing
so, though warned by those who knew China that the
Chinese recognize in public life two classes of women
only — married women, and single women of bad
character. What good results could the missions
expect from the missionary labours of persons so
despised by the Chinese'? It will be long before
Christianity finds a new and better soil in China than
it found at the time of Ricci. To claim any privileges,
however small, for Chinese converts was certainly an
imprudence on the part of the Great European Powers,
who after all were powerless to protect their faithful
martyrs. In Chinese society any attempt to raise the
social status of these Christian converts was sure to
excite jealousy and even hatred. After our late

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experience it must be quite clear that it is more than
doubtful whether Christian missionaries should he
sent or even allowed to go to countries, the Governments
of which object to their presence. It is always and
everywhere the same story. First commercial adven-
turers, then consuls, then missionaries, then soldiers,
then war.

In the course of centuries it could hardly be other-
wise than that sects should arise in the three State
religions of China, Confucianism, Taoism, and Bud-
dhism. Persecutions were frequent, but at the bottom
of each we can generally see political and social
questions more active than mere questions of dogma.
The rebellion of the Tae-Pings in 1 854 is still vivid
in the memories of many people, particularly as it
was General Gordon, the martyr of Khartoum, who
had to quell the insurrection against the Imperial
Government. The strange feature of that insurrection
was the leaning of the chief and his friends to what
we can only call Christian ideas. Tae-Ping-Wang
looked upon himself as a Messiah ; he worshipped a
kind of Trinity, he actually introduced baptism ana
the Lord’s Supper, and repudiated the worship of
idols. His favourite books were those of the Old
Testament which treat of the wars of the Israelites,
the very chapters which Ulfilas, the apostle of the
Goths, left out in his translation as likely to rouse
the bellicose tendencies of his countrymen.

While the hatred of Tae-Ping-Wang was chiefly
directed against the Manchu dynasty and aristocracy,
who for the last two hundred years have kept the real
Chinese under their sway, and while, like other rebels,
his object was to upset that dynasty and to found

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.

321

a truly national one, another conspiracy, that of the
Boxers, of whom we have lately heard so much, was
principally directed against all foreigners, particu-
larly against all Christians and their converts, and
aimed at a restoration of a Chinese religion for the
Chinese. The Boxers, whether so called from their
emblem, the Fist, in the sense of fighting or in the
sense of confederates, are one of those many societies
or brotherhoods which have undermined the whole
soil of China, and are ready to spring up at a moment’s
notice when they imagine there is work for them to do.
Different from the Tae-Pings they hate Christianity,
and hope to extirpate everything foreign that is found
to have entered China. There is no special religion
of the Boxers ; they seem to come from all the three
religions, but they are decidedly religious, and, before
all things, patriotic. Hence we must admit a certain
difficulty found by the Chinese Government in their
treatment of the Boxers. It is very probable that
some of the highest officials in China had strong
sympathies with these francs-tireurs, and even when
these free-lances became mere brigands they had not
always the courage to declare openly against them.
But this is no excuse for the Chinese Government in
tolerating and even encouraging such dastardly deeds
as have lately been committed in Pekin against the
representatives of European Governments and against
missionaries and their converts throughout China.
Such conduct will put China for many years outside
the pale of civilized nations, and would almost justify
that spirit of revenge which has found such plain
expression from one who cannot be suspected of lack
of chivalrous sentiments.

II.

322

LAST ESSAYS.

The origin and spreading of the three established
religions in China is of great interest, not only for
studying the ramifications of these systems of faith,
hut also as opening before our eyes a chapter of
history and geography of which we had no idea.
Before the travels of the Buddhist pilgrims from
China to India and from India to China were published,
who could have guessed that in the fifth century a.d.
human beings would have ventured to climb the
mountains that separate China from India, and find
their way back by sea from Ceylon along the Burmese,
Siamese, and Cambodian coast to their own home?
Who had any suspicion that after the third Buddhist
council, in the third century B. o., Buddhist missionaries
pushed forward to Kashmir and the Himalayan passes,
founded settlements not only in China, but among the
races of Central Asia, and thus came in contact with
the Greeks of Bactria, and with Mongolian and Tartar
races settled along the greater rivers, nay, in the very
heart of Central Asia? When we consider how Bud-
dhist and Christian settlements existed in Asia from
the seventh century, as at Si-gnan-fu, and that these
pilgrims must have found practicable or impracticable
roads as far as Alexandria in the West, Odessa and
Nisibis in Syria, and as far as Hsian-fu in the East ;
that Persia, too, was open to them, and that they
helped each other in teaching and learning their
languages, nay, even their alphabets, does not the
Asiatic continent assume a totally different aspect?
We wonder that here and there in China, Tibet, and
Mongolia (Kashgar) books are now forthcoming, as
yet almost unintelligible, but most likely of Buddhist
origin, which indicate at least the highways on which

THE RELIGIONS OP CHINA.

323

travels were possible for the purposes of religious
propaganda. The interior of Asia, which formerly
looked like an unknown desert, appears now like the
back of our hand, intersected by veins indicating
something living beneath. Many discoveries await
the patient student here, but we shall want for their
realization not only the ingenuity of Senart, Hoernle,
and Leumann x, but the plucky and lucky spade of
a Schliemann.

Tiber eine von den unbekannten Literaiursprachen Mitfelasiens, 1900.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS,

Chicago, 1893b

THERE are few things which I so truly regret
having missed as the great Parliament of Reli-
gions held in Chicago as a part of the Columbian
Exhibition in 1893. Who would have thought that
what was announced as simply an auxiliary branch
of that exhibition could have developed into what it
was, could have become the most important part of
that immense undertaking, could have become the
greatest success of the }7ear, and I do not hesitate to
say, could now take its place as one of the most
memorable events in the history of the world ?

As it seems to me, those to whom the great success
of this oecumenical council was chiefly due, I mean
President Bonney and Dr. Barrows, hardly made it
sufficiently clear at the beginning what was their real
purpose and scope. Had they done so, every one who
cares for the future of religion might have felt it his
bounden duty to take part in the congress. But it
seemed at the first glance that it would be a mere
show, a part of the great show of industry and art.
But instead of a show it developed into a reality,
which, if I am not greatly mistaken, will be re-
membered, aye, will bear fruit, when everything else

1 Substance of a Lecture delivered in Oxford in 1894, reprinted
by permission, from the Arena.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 325

of the mighty Columbian Exhibition has long been
swept away from the memory of man.

Possibly, like many bright ideas, the idea of
exhibiting all the religions of the world grew into
something far grander than its authors had at first
suspected. Even in America, where people have not
yet lost the faculty of admiring, and of giving hearty
expression to their admiration, the greatness of that
event seems to me not yet fully appreciated, while
in other countries vague rumours only have as yet
reached the public at large of what took place in the
religious parliament at Chicago. Here and there,
I am sorry to say, ridicule also, the impotent weapon
of ignorance and envy, has been used against what
ought to have been sacred to every man of sense and
culture ; but ridicule is blown away like offensive
smoke; the windows are opened, and the fresh air
of truth streams in.

It is difficult, no doubt, to measure correctly the
importance of events of which we ourselves have been
the witnesses. We have only to read histories and
chronicles, written some hundreds of years ago by eye-
witnesses and by the chief actors in certain events, to
see how signally the observers have failed in correctly
appreciating the permanent and historical significance
of what they saw and heard, or of what they them-
selves did. Everything is monumental and epoch-
making in the eyes of ephemeral critics, but History
must wait before she can pronounce a valid judge-
ment, and it is the impatience of the present to await
the sober verdict of History which is answerable for
so many monuments having been erected in memory
of events or of men whose very names are now

326

LAST ESSAYS.

unknown, or known to the stones of their pedestals
oniy.

But there is one fact in connexion with the Parlia-
ment of Religions which no sceptic can belittle, and
on which even contemporary judgement cannot be at
fault. Such a gathering of representatives of the
principal religions of the world has never before taken
place ; it is unique, it is unprecedented ; nay, we may
truly add, it could hardly have been conceived before
our own time. Of course even this has been denied,
and it has been asserted that the meeting at Chicago
was by no means the first realization of a new idea
upon this subject, but that similar meetings had taken
place before. Is this true or is it not1? To me it
seems a complete mistake. If the religious parlia-
ment was not an entirely new idea, it was certainly
the first realization of an idea which has lived silently
in the hearts of prophets, or has been uttered now and
then by poets only, who are free to dream dreams and
to see visions. Let me quote some lines of Browning s,
which certainly sound like true prophecy : —

1 Better pursue a pilgrimage
Through ancient and through modern times,

To many peoples, various climes,

Where I may see saint, savage, sage
Fuse their respective creeds in one
Before the general Father’s throne.’

Here you have no doubt the idea, the vision of the
religious parliament of the world ; but Browning
was not allowed to see it. You have seen it, and
America may be proud of having given substance to
Browning’s dream and to Browning s desire, if only it
will see that what has hitherto been achieved must
not be allowed to perish again.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 327

To compare that parliament with the council of the
Buddhist King Asoka, in the third century before
Christ, is to take great liberties with historical facts.
Asoka was no doubt an enlightened sovereign, who
preached and practised religious toleration more truly
than has any sovereign before or after him. I am the
last person to belittle his fame ; but we must remem-
ber that all the people who assembled at his council
belonged to one and the same religion, the religion of
Buddha, and although that religion was even at that
early time (242 B.c.) broken up into numerous sects,
yet all who were present at the Great Council pro-
fessed to be followers of Buddha only. We do not
hear of Gainas nor Agivikas or Brahmans, nor of any
other non-Buddhist religion being represented at the
Council of Bataliputra.

It is still more incongruous to compare the Council
of Chicago with the Council of Nicaea. That council
was no doubt called an oecumenical council, but what
was the olkov^vt], the inhabited world, of that time
(325 A. D.) compared with the world as represented at
the Columbian Exhibition of last year? Nor was
there any idea under Constantine of extending the
hand of fellowship to any non- Christian religion. On
the contrary the object -was to narrow the limits of
Christian love and toleration, by expelling the fol-
lowers of Arius from the pale of the Christian church.
As to the behaviour of the bishops assembled at
Nicaea, the less that is said about it the better ; but
I doubt whether the members of the Chicago council,
including bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, would
feel flattered if they were to be likened to the fathers
assembled at Nicaea.

328

LAST ESSAYS.

One more religious gathering has been quoted as
a precedent of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago;
it is that of the Emperor Akbar. But although the
spirit which moved the Emperor Akbar (1,542-1605)
to invite representatives of different creeds to meet
at Delhi, was certainly the same spirit which stirred
the hearts of those who originated the meeting at
Chicago, yet not only was the number of religions
represented at Delhi much more limited, but the
whole purpose was different. Here I say again, I am
the last person to try to belittle the fame of the
Emperor Akbar. He was dissatisfied with his own
religion, the religion founded by Mohammed; and for
an emperor to be dissatisfied with his own religion
and the religion of his people, augurs, generally, great
independence of judgement and true honesty of pur-
pose. We possess full accounts of his work as a
religious reformer, from both friendly and unfriendly
sources ; from Abufazl on one side, and from Badaoni
on the other (Introduction to The Science of Religion,
p. 209 et seq.).

Akbar’s idea was to found a new religion, and it
was for that purpose that he wished to become
acquainted with the prominent religions of the world.
He first invited the most learned ulemahs to discuss
certain moot points of Islam, but we are told by
Badaoni that the disputants behaved very badly, and
that one night, as he expresses it, the necks of the
ulemahs swelled up, and a horrid noise and confusion
ensued. The emperor announced to Badaoni that all
who could not behave, and who talked nonsense,
should leave the hall, upon which Badaoni remarked
that in that case they would all have to leave

THE PARLIAMENT OE RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 3:29

(loc. cit., p. 221). Nothing of this kind happened at
Chicago, I believe. The Emperor Akbar no doubt
did all he could to become acquainted with other
religions, but he certainly was not half so successful
as was the president of the Chicago religious congress
in assembling around him representatives of the
principal religions of the world. Jews and Christians
were summoned to the imperial court, and requested
to translate the Old and the New Testament. We
hear of Christian missionaries, such as Rodolpho
Aquaviva, Antonio de Monserrato, Francisco Enriques
and others ; nay, for some time a rumour was spread
that the emperor himself had actually been converted
to Christianity.

Akbar appointed a regular staff of translators, and
his library must have been very rich in religious
books. Still he tried in vain to persuade the Brahmans
to communicate the Vedas to him or to translate them
into a language which he could read. He knew
nothing of them, except possibly some portions of the
Atharva-veda, probably the Upanishads only. Nor
was he much more successful with the Zend Avesta,
though portions of it were translated for him by one
Ardshiv. His minister, Abufazl, tried in vain to assist
the emperor in gaining a knowledge of Buddhism ;
but we have no reason to suppose that the emperor
ever cared to become acquainted with the religious
systems of China, whether that of Confucius or that
of Lao-tzd. Besides, there was in all these religious
conferences the restraining presence of the emperor
and of the powerful heads of the different ecclesiastical
parties of Islam. Abufazl, who entered fully into the
thoughts of Akbar, expressed his conviction that the

330

LAST ESSAYS.

religions of the world have all one common ground
(loc. cit., p. 210). ‘One man,’ he writes (p. 211),

‘ thinks that he worships God by keeping his passions
in subjection ; another finds self-discipline in watch-
ing over the destinies of a nation. The religion of
thousands consists in clinging to a mere idea ; they
are happy in their sloth and unfitness of judging for
themselves. But when the time of reflection comes,
and men shake off the prejudices of their education,
the threads of the web of religious blindness break,
and the eye sees the glory of harmoniousness.’ ! But,’
he adds, ‘the ray of such wisdom does not light up
every house, nor could every heart bear such know-
ledge.’ ‘ Again,’ he says, ‘ although some are enlight-
ened, many would observe silence from fear of fanatics,
who lust for blood though they look like men. And
should any one muster sufficient courage, and openly
proclaim his enlightened thoughts, pious simpletons
would call him a madman, and throw him aside as of
no account, whilst the ill-starred wretches would at
once think of heresy and atheism, and go about with
the intention of killing him.’

This was written, more than three hundred years
ago, by a minister of Akbar, a contemporary of
Henry VIII ; but if it had been written in our own
days, in the days of Bishop Colenso and Dean Stanley,
it would hardly have been exaggerated, barring the
intention of killing such ‘madmen as openly declare
their enlightened thoughts ’ ; for burning heretics is
no longer either legal or fashionable. How closely
even the emperor and his friends were watched by his
enemies we may learn from the fact that in some cases
he had to see his informants in the dead of night,

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 331

sitting on a balcony of his palace, to which his guest
had to be pulled up by a rope ! There was no necessity
for that at Chicago. The parliament at Chicago had
not to consider the frowns or smiles of an empeioi
like Constantine ; it was encouraged, not intimidated,
by the presence of bishops and cardinals ; it was a fiee
and friendly meeting, nay, I may say a brotherly
meeting, and what is still more — for even biotheis
will sometimes quarrel — it was a harmonious meeting
from beginning to end. All the religions ol the world
were represented at the congress, far more completely
and far more ably than in the palace at Delhi, and
I repeat once more, without fear of contradiction, that
the Parliament of Religions at Chicago stands unique,
stands unprecedented in the whole history of the
world.

There are, after all, not so many religions in the
world as people imagine. There are only eight great
historical religions which can claim that name on the
strength of their possessing sacred books. All these
religions came from the East ; three from an Aryan,
three from a Semitic source, and two from China.
The three Aryan religions are the Vedic, with its
modern offshoots in India, the Avestlc of Zoroaster in
Persia, and the religion of Buddha, likewise the
offspring of Brahmanism in India. The three great
religions of Semitic origin are the Jewish, the Christian,
and the Mohammedan. There are, besides, the two
Chinese religions, that of Confucius and that of
Lao-tze, and that is all; unless we assign a separate
place to such creeds as Crainism, a near relative of
Buddhism, which was ably represented at Chicago,
or the religion of the Sikhs, which is after all but

332

LAST ESSAYS.

a compromise between Brahmanism and Moham-
medanism.

All these religions were represented at Chicago ;
the only one that might complain of being neglected
was Mohammedanism. Unfortunately the Sultan, in
his capacity as Khalif, was persuaded not to send
a representative to Chicago. One cannot help thinking
that both in his case and in that of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who likewise kept aloof from the congress,
there must have been some unfortunate misappre-
hension as to the real objects of that meeting. The
consequence was that Mohammedanism was left with-
out any authoritative representative in a general
gathering of all the religions of the world. It was
different with the Episcopalian Church of England,
for although the archbishop withheld his sanction
his church was ably represented both by English and
American divines.

But what surprised everybody was the large atten-
dance of representatives of all the other religions of the
world. There were Buddhists and Shintoists from
Japan, followers of Confucius and Lao-tze from China ;
there was a Parsee to speak for Zoroaster, there were
learned Brahmans from India to explain the V eda and
Vedanta. Even the most recent phases of Brahmanism
were ably and eloquently represented by Mozoomdar,
the Mend and successor of Keshub Chunder Sen, and
the modern reformers of Buddhism in Ceylon had
their powerful spokesman in Dharmapala. A brother
of the King of Siam came to speak for the Buddhism
of his country. Judaism was defended by learned
rabbis, while Christianity spoke through bishops and
archbishops, nay, even through a cardinal who is

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 333

supposed to stand very near the papal chair. How
had these men been persuaded to travel thousands of
miles, to spend their time and their money in order
to attend a congress, the very character and object of
which were mere matters of speculation 1

Great credit no doubt is due to Dr. Barrows and
his fellow labourers; but it is clear that the world was
really ripe for such a congress, nay, was waiting and
longing for it. Many people belonging to different
religions had been thinking about a universal religion,
or at least about a union of the different religions,
resting on a recognition of the truths shared in
common by all of them, and on a respectful toleration
of what is peculiar to each, unless it offended against
reason or morality. It was curious to see, after the
meeting was over, from how many sides voices were
raised, not only expressing approval of what had been
done, but regret that it had not been done long ago.
And yet I doubt whether the world would really
have been ready for such a truly oecumenical council
at a much earlier period. We all remember the time,
not so very long ago, when we used to pray for Jews,
Turks, and infidels, and thought of all of them as true
sons of Belial. Mohammed was looked upon as the
arch enemy of Christianity, the people of India were
idolaters of the darkest die, all Buddhists were athe-
ists, and even the Parsees were supposed to worship
the fire as their god.

It is due to a moi'e frequent intercourse between
Christians and non-Christians that this feeling of aver-
sion towards and misrepresentation of other religions
has of late been considerably softened. Much is due
to honest missionaries, who lived in India, China, and

334

LAST ESSAYS.

even among the savages of Africa, and who could not
help seeing the excellent influence which even less
perfect religions may exercise on honest believers.
Much also is due to travellers who stayed long enough
in countries such as Turkey, China, or Japan to see
in how many respects the people there were as good,
nay, even better, than those who call themselves
Christians. I read not long ago a book of travels by
Mrs. Gordon, called Clear Round. The author starts
with the strongest prejudices against all heathens, but
she comes home with the kindliest feelings towards
the religions which she has watched in their practical
working in India, in Japan, and elsewhere.

Nothing, however, if I am not blinded by my own
paternal feelings, has contributed more powerfully to
spread a feeling of toleration, nay, in some cases, of
respect for other religions, than has the publication
of the Sacred Books of the East. It reflects the
highest credit on Lord Salisbury, at the time Secretary
of State for India, and on the university of which he
is the chancellor, that so large an undertaking could
have been carried out ; and I am deeply grateful that
it should have fallen to my lot to be the editor of this
series, and that I should thus have been allowed to
help in laying the solid foundation of the large temple
of the religion of the future — a foundation which shall
be broad enough to comprehend every shade of honest
faith in that Power which by nearly all religions is
called Our Father, a name only, it is true, and it may
be a very imperfect name ; yet there is no other name
in human language that goes nearer to that for-ever-
unknown Majesty in which we ourselves live and
move and have our being.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 335

But although this feeling of kindliness for and the
desire to be just to non-Christian religions has been
growing up for some time, it never before found such
an open and solemn recognition as at Chicago. That
meetiug was not intended, like that under Akbar at
Delhi, for elaborating a new religion, but it established
a fact of the greatest significance, namely, that there
exists an ancient and universal religion, and that
the highest dignitaries and representatives of all the
relio'ions of the world can meet as members of one

common brotherhood, can listen respectfully to what
each religion had to say for itself, nay, can join in
a common prayer and accept a common blessing, one
day from the hands of a Christian archbishop, another
day from a Jewish rabbi, and again another day from
a Buddhist priest (Dharmapala). Another fact, also,
was established once for all, namely, that the points
on which the great religions differ are far less
numerous, and certainly far less important, than are
the points on which they all agree. The words,
‘that God has not left Himself without a witness,’
became for the first time revealed as a fact at this
congress.

Whoever knows what human nature is will not
feel surprised that every one present at the religious
parliament looked on his own religion as the best,
nay, loved it all the same, even when on certain
points it seemed clearly deficient or antiquated as
compared with other religions. Yet that predilection
did not interfere with a hearty appreciation of what
seemed good and excellent in other religions. When
an old Jewish rabbi summed up the whole of his
religion in the words, ‘Be good, my boy, for God’s

336

LAST ESSAYS.

sake,’ no member of the Parliament of Religions would
have said No ; and when another rabbi declared that
the whole law and the prophets depend on our loving
God and loving our neighbour as ourselves, there are
few religions that could not have quoted from their
own sacred scriptures more or less perfect expressions
of the same sentiment.

I wish indeed it could have been possible at this
parliament to put forward the most essential doctrines
of Christianity or Islam, for example, and to ask the
representatives of the other religions of the world
whether their own sacred books said Yes or No to
any of them. For that purpose, however, it would
have been necessary, no doubt, to ask each speaker
to give chapter and verse for his declaration, — and
here is the only weak point that has struck me, and
is sure to strike others, in reading the transactions of
the Parliament of Religions. Statements were put
forward by those who professed to speak in the name
of Buddhism, Brahmanism, Christianity, and Zoroas-
trianism— by followers of these religions who happened
to be present — which, if the speakers had been asked
for chapter and verse from their own canonical books,
would have been difficult to substantiate, or, at all
events, would have assumed a very modified aspect.
Perhaps this was inevitable, particularly as the rules
of the parliament did not encourage anything like
discussion, and it might have seemed hardly courteous
to call upon a Buddhist archbishop to produce his
authority from the TripRaka, or from the nine
Dharmas.

We know how much our own Christian sects difter
in the interpretation of the Bible, and how they

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 337

contradict one another on many of their articles of
faith. Yet they all accept the Bible as their highest
authority. Whatever doctrine is contradicted by the
Bible they would at once surrender as false ; what-
ever doctrine is not supported by it they could not
claim as revealed. It is the same with all the other
so-called book-religions. Whatever differences of
opinion may separate different sects, they all submit
to the authority of their own sacred books.

I may therefore be pardoned if I think that the
Parliament of Religions, the record of which has been
assembled in fifty silent volumes, is in some respects
more authoritative than the Parliament that was held
at Chicago. At Chicago you had, no doubt, the im-
mense advantage of listening to living witnesses ; you
were making the history of the future — my parliament
in type records only the history of the past. Besides,
the immense number of hearers, your crowded hall
joining in singing sacred hymns, nay, even the mag-
nificent display of colour by the representatives of
oriental and occidental creeds — the snowy lawn, the
orange and crimson satin, the vermilion brocade of
the various ecclesiastical vestments so eloquently
described by your reporters — all this contributed to
stir an enthusiasm in your hearts which I hope will
never die. If there are two worlds, the world of deeds
and the world of words, you moved at Chicago in the
world of deeds. But in the end what remains of the
world of deeds is the world of words, or, as we call it,
history, and in those fifty volumes you may see the
history, the outcome, or, in some cases, the short
inscription on the tombstones of those who in their
time have battled for truth, as the speakers assembled

II.

338

LAST ESSAYS.

at Chicago have battled for truth, for love, and for
charity to our neighbours.

I know full well what may be said against all
sacred books. Mark, first of all, that not one has
been written by the founder of a religion ; secondly,
that nearly all were written hundreds, in some cases
thousands, of years after the rise of the religion which
they profess to represent ; thirdly, that even after
they were written they were exposed to dangers and
interpolations ; and fourthly, that it requires a very
accurate and scholarlike knowledge of their language
and of the thoughts of the time when they were com-
posed, in order to comprehend their true meaning.
All this should be honestly confessed; and yet there
remains the fact that no religion has ever recognized
an authority higher than that of its sacred book,
whether for the past, or the present, or the future.
It was the absence of this authority, the impossibility
of checking the enthusiastic descriptions of the supreme
excellence of every single religion, that seems to me
to have somewhat interfered with the usefulness of
that great oecumenical meeting at Chicago.

But let us not forget, therefore, what has been
achieved by this parliament in the world of deeds.
Thousands of people from every part of the world
have for the first time been seen praying together,
‘ Our Father, which art in heaven,’ and have testified
to the words of the prophet Malachi,— ‘ Have we not
all one Father, hath not one God created us?’ They
have declared that ‘ in every nation he that feareth
God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.
They have seen with their own eyes that God is not
far from each one of those who seek God, if haply

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 339

they may feel after Him. Let theologians pile up
volume upon volume of what they call theology ;
religion is a very simple matter, and that which is
so simple and yet so all-important to us, the living
kernel of religion, can be found, I believe, in almost
every creed, however much the husk may vary. And
think what that means ! It means that above and
beneath and behind all religions there is one eternal,
one universal religion, a religion to which every man,
whether black, or white, or yellow, or red, belongs or
may belong.

What can be more disturbing and distressing than
to see the divisions in our own religion, and likewise
the divisions in the eternal and universal religion of
mankind ? Not only are the believers in different
religions divided from each other, but they think it
right to hate and to anathematize each other on ac-
count of their belief. As long as religions encourage
such feelings none of them can be the true one.

And if it is impossible to prevent theologians from
quarrelling, or popes, cardinals, archbishops and
bishops, priests and ministers, from pronouncing their
anathemas, the true people of God, the universal laity,
have surely a higher duty to fulfil. Their religion,
whether formulated by Buddha, Mohammed, or Christ,
is before all things practical, a religion of love and
trust, not of hatred and excommunication.

Suppose that there are and that there always will
remain differences of creed, are such differences fatal
to a universal religion 1 Must we hate one another
because we have different creeds, or because we express
in different ways what we believe ?

Let us look at some of the most important articles

340

LAST ESSAYS.

of faith, such as miracles, the immortality of the soul ,
and the existence of God. It is well known that both
Buddha and Mohammed declined to perform miracles,
nay, despised them if required as evidence in support
of the truth of their doctrines. If, on the contrary,
the founder of our own religion appealed, as we are
told, to His works in support of the truth of His teach-
ing, does that establish either the falsehood or the
truth of the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, or the
Christian religion ? May there not be truth even
without miracles ? Nay, as others would put it,
may there not be truth even if resting apparently
on the evidence of miracles only ? Whenever all
three religions proclaim the same truth, may they
not all be true, even if they vary slightly in their
expression, and may not their fundamental agreement
serve as stronger evidence even than all miracles ?

Or take a more important point, the belief in the
immortality of the soul. Christianity and Moham-
medanism teach it, ancient Mosaism seems almost to
deny it, while Buddhism refrains from any positive
utterance, neither asserting nor denying it. Does
even that necessitate rupture and excommunication 'l
Are we less immortal because the Jews doubted and
the Buddhists shrank from asserting the indestructible
nature of the soul ?

Nay, even what is called atheism is, often, not the
denial of a Supreme Being, but simply a refusal to
recognize what seem to some minds human attributes,
unworthy of the Deity. Whoever thinks that he can
really deny Deity, must also deny humanity ; that is,
he must deny himself, and that, as you know, is a
logical impossibility.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 341

But true religion, that is practical, active, living
religion, has little or nothing to do with such logical
or metaphysical quibbles. Practical religion is life, is
a new life, a life in the sight of God ; and it springs
from what may truly be called a new birth. And
even this belief in a new birth is by no means an
exclusively Christian idea. Nicodemus might ask,
How can a man be born again ? The old Brahmans,
however, knew perfectly well the meaning of that
second birth. They called themselves Dvi-ga, that
is Twice-born, because their religion had led them to
discover their divine birthright, long before we were
taught to call ourselves the children of God.

In this way it would be possible to discover a
number of fundamental doctrines, shared in common
by the great religions of the world, though clothed in
slightly varying phraseology. Nay, I believe it would
have been possible, even at Chicago, to draw up a
small number of articles of faith, not, of course,
thirty-nine, to which all who were present could have
honestly subscribed. And think what that would
have meant ! It rests with us to carry forth the
torch that has been lighted in America, and not to
allow it to be extinguished again till a beacon has
been raised lighting up the whole world, and drawing
towards it the eyes and hearts of all the sons of men
in brotherly love and in reverence for that God who
has been worshipped since the world began, albeit in
different languages and under different names, but
never before in such unison, in such world-embracing
harmony and love, as at the great religious council
at Chicago.

342

LAST ESSAYS.

Letter to the Rev. John Henry Barrows, D.D.,
Chairman of the General Committee.

Easter Sunday, April 2nd, 1893.

Dear Sir, — What I have aimed at in my Gifford
Lectures on ‘ Natural Religion ’ is to show that all
religions are natural, and you will see from my last
volume on Theosophy or Psychological Religion that
what I hope for is not simply a reform, but a complete
revival of religion, more particularly of the Christian
religion. You will hardly have time to read the
whole of my volume before the opening of your Reli-
gious Congress at Chicago, but you can easily see the
drift of it. I had often asked myself the question
how independent thinkers and honest men like St.
Clement and Origen came to embrace Christianity, and
to elaborate the first system of Christian theology.
There was nothing to induce them to accept Christi-
anity, or to cling to it, if they had found it in any
way irreconcilable with their philosophical convic-
tions. They were philosophers first, Christians after-
ward. They had nothing to gain and much to lose by
joining and remaining in this new sect of Christians.
We may safely conclude therefore that they found
their own philosophical convictions, the final outcome
of the long preceding development of philosophical
thought in Greece, perfectly compatible with the
religious and moral doctrines of Christianity as con-
ceived by themselves.

Now, what was the highest result of Greek philo-
sophy as it reached Alexandria, whether in its Stoic
or neo-Platonic garb ? It was the ineradicable con-

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 343

viction that there is Reason or Logos in the world.
When asked, Whence that Reason, as seen by the eye
of science in the phenomenal world, they said : ‘ From
the cause of all things which is beyond all Dames and
comprehension, except so far as it is manifested or
revealed in the phenomenal world.’

What we call the different types or ideas, or logoi,
in the world, are the logoi or thoughts or wills of that
Being whom human language has called God. These
thoughts, which embraced everything that is, existed
at first as thoughts, as a thought- world (koV/xo? votitos),
before by will and force they could become what we
see them to be, the types or species realized in the
visible world (koct/xos dparos). So far all is clear and
incontrovertible, and a sharp line is drawn between
this philosophy and another, likewise powerfully
represented in the previous history of Greek philo-
sophy, which denied the existence of that eternal
Reason, denied that the world was thought and
willed, as even the Klamaths, a tribe of Red Indians,
profess and ascribe the world, as we see it as men of
science, to purely mechanical causes, to what we now
call uncreate protoplasm, assuming various casual
forms by means of natural selection, influence of
environment, survival of the fittest, and all the rest.

The critical step which some of the philosophers
of Alexandria took, while others refused to take it,
was to recognize the perfect realization of the Divine
Thought or Logos of manhood in Christ, as in the true
sense the Son of God ; not in the vulgar mythological
sense, but in the deep metaphysical meaning of which
the term vlos [xovoyevijs had long been possessed in
Greek philosophy. Those who declined to take that

344

LAST ESSAYS.

step, such as Celsus and his friends, did so either
because they denied the possibility of any Divine
•Thought ever becoming fully realized in the flesh or
in the phenomenal world, or because they could not
bring themselves to recognize that realization in Jesus
of Nazareth. St. Clement’s conviction that the pheno-
menal world was a realization of the Divine Reason
was based on purely philosophical grounds, while his
conviction that the ideal or the Divine conception of
manhood had been fully realized in Christ and in
Christ only, dying on the Cross for the truth as
revealed to Him and by Him, could have been based
on historical grounds only.

Everything else followed. Christian morality was
really in complete harmony with the morality of the
Stoic school of philosophy, though it gave to it a new
life and a higher purpose. But by means of Chris-
tian philosophy the whole world assumed a new
aspect. It was seen to be supported and pervaded
by Reason or Logos, it was throughout teleological,
thought and willed by a rational power. The same
Divine presence was now perceived for the first time
in all its fullness and perfection in the one Son of
God, the pattern of the whole race of men henceforth
to be called ‘ the sons of God.’

This was the groundwork of the earliest Christian
theology, as presupposed by the author of the fourth
Gospel, and likewise by many passages in the Synop-
tical Gospels, though fully elaborated for the first time
by such men as St. Clement and Origen. If we want
to be true and honest Christians, we must go back to
those earliest ante-Nicene authorities, the true Fathers
of the Church. Thus only can we use the words :

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO. 345

‘ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
became flesh,’ not as thoughtless repeaters, but as
honest thinkers and believers. The first sentence,
‘In the beginning was the Word,’ requires thought
and thought only ; the second, ‘ and the Logos became
flesh,’ requires faith — faith such as those who knew
Jesus had in Jesus, and which we may accept unless
we have any reasons for doubting their testimony.

There is nothing new in all this, it is only the
earliest Christian theology restated, restored, and
revised. It gives us at the same time a truer con-
ception of the history of the whole world, showing us
that there was a purpose in the ancient religions and
philosophies of the world, and that Christianity was
really from the beginning a synthesis of the best
thoughts of the past, as they had been slowly
elaborated by the two principal representatives of the
human race, the Aryan and the Semitic.

On this ancient foundation, which was strangely
neglected, if not purposely rejected, at the time of
the Reformation, a true revival of the Christian reli-
gion and a reunion of all its divisions may become
possible, and I have no doubt that your Congress of
the religions of the world might do excellent work for
the resuscitation of pure and primitive ante-Nicene
Christianity.

Yours very truly,

F. Max Muller.

WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC1.

WHEN I was lately asked to take part in a
Symposium in the Agnostic Annual on the
question ‘ Why live a Moral Life ? ’ I felt it an honour
to join a company of thinkers and writers so eminent,
each in his own subject, as the supporters of that
journal. But I felt bound at the same time to declare
that I had really no right to claim the title of Agnostic.
If, as we have been told, Agnosticism implied no more
than a negation of Gnosticism, and if by Gnosticism
were meant the teaching of such philosophers as
Cerinthus or Valentinus or Marcion, I believe I might
say that I do not hold their opinions, that I am
certainly not a Gnostic, although I strongly sympathize
with what was meant originally by Gnosis, as distinct
from Pistis.

But this merely negative definition of Agnosticism
would hardly be satisfactory to the leading Agnostics
of our time. For though Agnosticism excluded Aiexan-
drian Gnosticism, it might include ever so many views
of the universe, opposed to each other on many points,
though agreeing in a common renunciation of Gnosticism.

Agnosticism, however, as now understood, seems to
mean something very different. It has been explained
to mean ‘that a man shall not say he knows or
believes that which he has no scientific grounds for

1 Nineteenth Century, December, i S94.

WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC. 347

professing to know or believe.’ Perhaps this, too, is
an article which few men would object to sign, though
it leaves the door open to a good deal of controversy
as to what is meant by ‘ scientific grounds.’ Some
astronomers held that the earth formed the centre of
the world, others denied it ; both, as they thought, on
scientific grounds. The opponents of Galileo produced
what they considered scientific grounds for their
opinions ; Galileo produced scientific grounds for his
own conviction, and no one would wish that the two
parties should have confined themselves to mere
Agnosticism, to a profession of ignorance of the true
position of the earth or the sun in our planetary
system — should have shrugged their shoulders and
said ‘ Who knows ? ’

We enter into a new atmosphere of thought if, as
Agnostics, we are asked c to confess that we know
nothing of what may be beyond phenomena.’ But
this, too, if properly interpreted, is an article which
few who can see through the meaning of words
would decline to accept, while people accustomed to
philosophical terminology might possibly consider
such a statement as almost tautological. What may
be, or even what is, beyond phenomena is the same as
what we call transcendent ; that is, what transcends
or lies beyond the horizon of our knowledge, and
therefore leaves us ignorant, or Agnostics. Phenomenal
means what appears to be, in distinction from what
is, and if knowledge were restricted to what is, then
what only appears to be could not possibly claim to
produce real knowledge.

But if all these propositions are so self-evident as
to make controversy almost impossible, it may seem

348

LAST ESSAYS.

strange that Agnosticism, not only the name, but the
thing itself, should of late have been represented as
the peculiar property of the nineteenth century. The
whole history of philosophy forms but one continuous
commentary on the fact that there are things which
we can, and others which we cannot, know ; nay, it
is the chief object of all critical philosophy to draw
a sharp line between the two. If we begin the history
of systematic philosophy with Socrates, as represented
to us by his disciples, we know that Socrates, though
declared the wisest of men by the oracle of Delphi,
declared that he knew one thing only, and that was
that he knew nothing. This has been thought by
some to be a mere expression of excessive humility
on the part of Socrates, just as when, in the Hippias
Minor, he says, ‘My deficiency is proved to me by
the fact that when I meet one of you who are famous
for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes
are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing.’
But there was really a much deeper meaning in his
confession of ignorance, for he claimed this knowledge
of his ignorance as a proof of his wisdom. He
can only have meant, therefore, that he knew all
human knowledge to be concerned with phenomena
only, and that he knew nothing of what may be
beyond phenomena. If this was the beginning of all
philosophy, the end of all philosophy was to find out
how we know even this ; how we know that we are
ignorant, and why we must be ignorant of everything
beyond what is phenomenal.

That question had to wait for its final answer till
Kant wrote his Kritik der reinen Vemunft, and gave
a scientific demonstration of the inherent limits of

WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC. 349

human knowledge. In the meantime the confession
of our ignorance, the true philosophical Agnosticism,
had found utterance again and again from the lips
of all the most eminent philosophers. They did not
call it Agnosticism, because that word, as seeming to
exclude Gnosticism only, would have conveyed a
too narrow and therefore a false idea. Greek philoso-
phers called it with a technical name, Agnoict x, or,
if they wished to express the proper attitude of the
mind towards transcendental questions, they called it
EpoeTte, i. e. suspense of judgement. During the Middle
Ages exactly the same idea which now goes by the
name of Agnosticism was well known as Docta
Ignorantia, i. e. the ignorance founded on the know-
ledge of our ignorance, or of our impotence to grasp
anything beyond what is phenomenal.

In both these senses, therefore, i. e. in the sense of
not being a follower of the Alexandrian. Gnostics, and
in that of admitting that all the objects of our
knowledge are ipso facto phenomenal, I should not
hesitate to call myself an Agnostic. And yet I can-
not do so for two reasons : (i) because I strongly

sympathize with the objects which in the beginning
Alexandrian Gnosticism and neo-Platonism had in
view, and (2) because I hold that the human mind in
its highest functions is not confined to a knowledge
of phenomena only.

To begin with the second point, I need hardly say
that the very name phenomenal or apparent implies
that there is something that appears, something of
which we can therefore predicate that it appears,
something that seems to be, that is relative to us, and

1 M. M., Natural Religion, p. 225.

S50

LAST ESSAYS.

so far, but so far only, known to us. That which
appears is, before it appears, unknown to us, but it
becomes known to us in the only way in which it can
be known, that is by its appearance, by its phenomenal
manifestation, by its becoming an object of human
knowledge. It is known to us as that without which
the phenomenal would be impossible, nay, unthinkable.
That wdthout which the phenomenal would be un-
thinkable is sometimes called the noumenal, the real,
the absolute, and if we call its absence unthinkable,
we imply that there are certain forms of our thought
from which our phenomenal knowledge cannot escape,
the well-known Kantian forms of intuition and under-
standing. These, as Kant has shown, cannot be the
mere result of phenomenal experience because they
possess a character of necessity which no phenomenal
experience can ever claim. To take a very simple
case. It is well known that we never see more than
one side of the moon. Yet such are the powers both
of our sensuous intuition (Anschauungsformen) and
of the categories of our understanding, that we know
with perfect certainty, a certainty such as no ex-
perience, if repeated a thousand times, could ever
give us, that there must be another side which on this
earth we shall never see, but which to our consciousness
is as real as the side which we do see. These forms
of sensuous intuition admit of no exception. The rule
that every material body must have more than one
side is absolute. In the same way, if we think at all,
we must submit to the law of causality, a category
of our understanding, without which even the simplest
phenomenal knowledge would be impossible. We
never see a horse, we are only aware of certain states

WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC.

351

of our own consciousness, produced through our senses;
but that these affections presuppose a cause, or, as we
call it, an object outside us, is due to that law of
causality within us which we must obey, whether we
like it or not.

If, then, we have to recognize in every single object
of our phenomenal knowledge a something or a power
which manifests itself in it, and which we know, and
can only know, through its phenomenal manifestation,
we have also to acknowledge a power that manifests
itself in the whole universe. We may call that power
unknown or inscrutable, but we may also call it the
best known, because all our knowledge is derived
from a scrutiny of its phenomenal manifestations.
That it is, we know ; what it is by itself, that is, out
of relation to us or unknown by us, of course we
cannot know, as little as we can eat our cake and
have it ; but we do know that without it the manifest
or phenomenal universe would be impossible.

This is the first step which carries us beyond the
limits of Agnoia, and by which I am afraid I should
forfeit at once the right of calling myself an Agnostic.
But another and even more fatal step is to follow,
which, I fear, will deprive me altogether of any claim
to that title. I cannot help discovering in the uni-
verse an all-pervading causality or a reason for every-
thing ; for, even when in my phenomenal ignorance
I do not yet know a reason for this or that, I am
forced to admit that there exists some such reason ;
I feel bound to admit it, because to a mind like ours
nothing can exist without a sufficient reason. But
how do I know that ? Here is the point where I cease
to be an Agnostic. I do not know it from experience,

352

LAST ESSAYS.

and yet I know it with a certainty greater than any
which experience could give. This also is not a new
discovery. The first step towards it was made at
a very early time by the Greek philosophers, when
they turned from the obsexwation of outward nature
to higher sphex-es of thought, and recognized in nature
the working of a mind or Now?, which pervades the
universe. Anaxagoras, who was the first to postulate
such a Nor? in nature, ascribed to it not much more
than the first impulse to the intei’action of his Homoio-
meries. But even his NoC? was soon perceived to be
more than a mere primum mobile, more than the
klvovv aKLvrjTov. We ourselves, after thousands of years
of physical and metaphysical reseai'ch, can say no more
than that there is NoS?, that there is mind and l’eason
in nature. Sa Majeste le Hascird has long been
dethroned in all scientific studies, and neither natural
selection, nor struggle for life, nor the influence of
environment, or any other aliases of it, will account
for the Logos , the thought, which with its thousand
eyes looks at us through the transpai’ent cui’tain of
nature and calls for thoughtful recognition from the
Logos within us. If any philosopher can persuade
himself that the true and well-ordei'ed genera of
nature are the result of mechanical causes, whatever
name he may give them, he moves in a world alto-
gether diffei-ent from my own. He belongs to a period
of thought antecedent to Anaxagoras. To Plato these
genera were ideas ; to the Peripatetics they were words
or Logoi ; to both they were manifestations of thought.
Unless these thoughts had existed previous to their
manifestation or individualization in the phenomenal
world, the human mind could never have discovered

WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC.

353

them there and named them. We ought not to say
any longer in the language of the childhood of our
race, ‘ In the beginning God created heaven and
earth.’ As Christians we have to say in the language
of St. John and his Platonic and Gnostic predecessors,
‘ In the beginning there was the Logos.’ If we call
that Logos the Son, and if we speak of a Father whom
no one knows but the Son, the so-called Deus ante
intellectum, we are using human language, but if we
know that all human language is metaphorical we
shall never attempt to force these words into a narrow
literal meaning. To do so is to create mythology,
and with it all its concomitant dangers. What lies
behind the curtain of these words is, in fact, the
legitimate realm of Agnoia or Agnosticism. But all
that lies on this side of the curtain is our domain,
the domain of language and afterwards of science,
which in the chaos of phenomena has discovered, and
with every new generation of Aristotles, Bacons, and
Darwins is bent on discovering more and more, a
hidden Cosmos, or the reflex of that Logos, without
which Nature would be illogical, irrational, chaotic,
and existing by accident only, not by the will of a
rational Power. Call that Power the Father, or call
it a Person, and you neither gain nor lose anything,
for these words also are metaphorical only, and what
constitutes the personal element in man or any other
living being is as unknown to us as what constitutes
the personal element in the author, the thinker, the
speaker, or creator of the logoi. All I maintain is,
that if we ever speak of a Logos and of logoi, and
understand clearly what we mean by these words, we
can no longer say that in the beginning there was
II. a a

354

LAST ESSAYS.

protoplasm, and that the whole world was evolved
from it by purely mechanical or external agencies.
If we have once recognized in all the genera or
generations of the natural world, not simply the
unknown, or a substance and power that is in-
scrutable, but the thoughts and will of a mind, that
mind, so far from being inscrutable, undergoes a
constant scrutiny in its endless manifestations at the
hand of human science. It is in fact the one subject
of all our knowledge, from the first attempts at
roughly grouping and naming it to the latest efforts
of scientific research, intended to classify, to compre-
hend, and understand it. The whole of our know-
ledge of nature becomes thus a recognition of the
logoi of nature by the Logos of ourselves. Each
genus becomes a logos, an eternal thought or an
eternal word ; nay, it seems to follow from this that
there is in nature no room for anything but genera ;
no room for species or el 877 in the proper sense of
these terms. Here we see how the Science of Lan-
guage becomes the Science of Thought. If it is unity
of origin that constitutes a genus, true science knows
indeed of individuals which represent a genus, but not
of species, though for practical purposes the human
mind may give that name to varieties in their moie
or less inheritable and permanent form ; such varie-
ties being in reality no more than the necessaiy
consequence of individualization and manifoldness.
If each individual differs, and must differ, by some-
thing from all other individuals of the same genus,
the accumulation of these differentiating somethings
leads naturally to the formation of what is called
a species. We may then speak, lor instance, of

WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC.

355

different varieties or even species of horses, includ-
ing the three-toed hipparion ; but there is but one
Itthottis, if we have but the eye to see it, as Plato
used to say.

I hardly venture to say whether I know all this, or
whether I only believe it. I cannot help seeing order,
law, reason or Logos in the world, and I cannot
account for it by merely ex post events, call them
what you like — survival of the fittest, natural selec-
tion, or anything else. Anyhow, this Gnosis is to me
irresistible, and I dare not therefore enter the camp
of the Agnostics under false colours. I am not aware
that on my way to this Gnosis I have availed myself
of anything but the facts of our direct consciousness,
and the conclusions that can be logically deduced
from them. Without these two authorities I do not
feel bound to accept any testimony, whether revealed
or unrevealed. It is history alone which can tell us
how these ideas arose and how they grew from cen-
tury to century. What I have tried to do, however
imperfectly, is to discover the causes which in the
history of the world have led men to accept what,
according to some philosophers, rested neither on the
evidence of their senses nor on the logical conclusions
of their reason. I have lately attempted to trace
these causes and their historical progress in my
Gifford Lectures, more particularly in the last volume,
called Theosophy , or Psychological Religion. In one
sense I hope I am, and always have been, an Agnostic,
that is, in relying on nothing but historical facts and
in following reason as far as it will take us in matters
of the intellect, and in never pretending that con-
clusions are certain which are not demonstrated or

A a 2

356

LAST ESSAYS.

demonstrable. This attitude of the mind has always
been recognized as the conditio sine qua non of all
philosophy. If, in future, it is to be called Agnosti-
cism, then I am a true Agnostic ; but if Agnosticism
excludes a recognition of an eternal reason pervadin
the natural and the moral world, if to postulate
rational cause for a rational universe is called Gnosti-
cism, then I am a Gnostic, and a humble follower of
the greatest thinkers of our race, from Plato and the
author of the Fourth Gospel to Kant and Hegel.

IS MAN IMMORTAL?1

MOST people would feel reluctant to express their
opinion on the immortality of the soul, a subject
which has occupied the thoughts of men since the first
dawn of recorded thought and has elicited utterances,
more or less inspired, from the best and wisest in every
country and every century. We possess to-day no
more materials for the satisfactory treatment of this
problem than did the sages of Egypt, Palestine, India,
Persia, and Greece. Are we likely, then, to see further
than they or are our arguments likely to be more
conclusive or more persuasive than those of Plato or
St. Paul?

There is an excellent book by Alger, published in
America, on The Doctrine of a Future Life, with a
valuable appendix by Ezra Abbot, librarian of Harvard
College, containing the titles of 4,977 books relating
to the nature, origin, and destiny of the soul. Is not
that enough? Can we hope that anything may be
said on the immortality of the soul that has not been
said before, whether for or against it ? Shall we ever
know anything about the soul after the death of this
body ? It stands to reason that if we take 1 to know ’
in the ordinary sense of the word we cannot even in
this life know the soul or anything relating to its
nature, origin, and destiny, and yet there are these

1 American Press Association, 1895.

358

LAST ESSAYS.

4,977 books and probably a good many more ! Know-
ledge possessed by men can have but one beginning.
It begins with the senses. It does not end there — far
from it. But, just as every man has to begin with
being a babe, all human knowledge, however abstract
and sublime in the end, must make its first entry
through the narrow gate of the senses. This may
easily be misunderstood. But if properly understood
it cannot be denied, whether by Gnostics or Agnostics.

If, then, no human eye has ever seen, no human
ear has ever heard, no human hand has ever handled
the soul, how are we to know the soul, and how are
we to predicate anything of it, particularly such a
px-edicate as immortal, which likewise has never come
within the sphei'e of our sensuous experience1? If I
attempt to answer this question, it is chiefly because
I believe it ofiei's a good opportunity for showing
once more what I have tried to prove in several of
my books, and moi’e particularly in my Science of
Thought, 1887 — namely, that all philosophy must
in the end become a philosophy of language, and
because it is from this point of view alone that I may
hope to throw a new ray of light on the problem of
the immortality of the soul.

I am quite aware that this ray of light will seem
anything but light to many among the 7,000,000
readers for whom these papers on ‘ The Immortality
of the Soul ’ are intended. But that cannot be helped.
We must learn Hebrew if we want to understand the
Old Testament. We must know English if we wish
to appreciate Shakespeai-e.

I therefore warn my readers that a cei'tain ac-
quaintance with the language of philosophy will be

IS MAN IMMORTAL 1

359

required if they wish to know something about the
soul, something more than its name, which we all use
so glibly.

In spite of certain objections by which this thesis
of mine, the inseparability of word and thought, was
greeted when first put forward, its truth, its palpable
truth has since been recognized, directly or indirectly,
by many philosophical writers who take the trouble
to think for themselves, instead of merely repeating
the watchwords whether ol Locke or Hume, ot Kant
or Hegel. That I do not claim to have been the first
to discover this self-evident truth I have tried to show
in an article on ‘My Predecessors,’ published in The
Contemporary Review , vol. liv1.

One lesson in the philosophy of language which
hardly anybody would venture to deny, though few
seem inclined to avail themselves of it, is that before
we reason, before we combine our terms, we are in
duty bound to define them. Before we say that the
soul is or is not immortal we must say what we mean
by the word soul.

The word we have, we hear it, we learn it, and we
use it constantly in all kinds of meanings, but before
we use it, and before we reason about it, we ought
surely to try to find out whence the word came to us
and how it first arose. The history of the words for
soul in the various languages is a very long history, far
too long to be given here. I have given it in several
of my books ( Anthropological Religion, 189a, p. 196
seq.), and the result may be summed up in a few words.
Words for soul mostly turn out to have been at first
words for the visible or tangible wind, or the breath

1 Last Essays, series i. p. 27.

360

LAST ESSAYS.

issuing from the mouth. They became gradually
divested of their material and visible attributes till
they were brought to mean the vital breath or some-
thing stirring and striving within us, something of
which breath was the visible sign, and when this
breath of life also had been discovered as something
accidental, something that comes and goes, then what
remained — that which was not breath or anima, but
of which anima, as living breath, formed only an
attribute, was singled out and signed b}^ its own
name, whether psyche or thymos , or soul or d/rne,
all having meant originally breathing or commotion.
Whenever the old words for the visible breath were
retained in their material meaning, a new word had
to be formed to distinguish that which breathed from
its outward manifestation — the actual breath ; while,
if new words had been used for the breath that went
in and out of the nose and mouth, the old word for it
was often retained in a higher and immatei'ial sense.
It must be clear that a word cannot mean more than
what it was meant to mean, so that we may truly call
things the meanings of our words. This true nomina-
lism is nowhere more clearly recognized than in
Sanskrit, where even in ordinary parlance things are
called parlarthas — i. e. meanings of words. Even
when we do not know a thing we ask in Sanskrit :
Kam padartham pasyasi ? What thing do you see ?—
literally, Wliat word-meaning do you see 1 I doubt
whether any other language can match this.

By the ordinary process of divestment or abstrac-
tion the word which, after being freed from its ety-
mological and traditional meanings, remained for
soul no longer meant anything visible. It no longer

IS MAN IMMORTAL1?

361

meant breathing or life or even thinking, with the
whole of its ars combinatoria, but it was meant
for that of which all these are essential attributes ;
so that without it the body would not be the body,
nor breath breath, nor spirit spirit, nor life life, nor
thought in all its varieties thought. We see, then,
that after it was understood that the word soul was
not open to mean breath, spirit, life, or thought, there
remained but one positive predicate — namely, that the
soul is that which is, and without which body, breath,
life, and thought would not be what they are. Now
that without which other things that are cannot be
may surely claim being for itself. We may go on
divesting the soul of ever so many things, in the end
there must always remain that which was divested —
the naked, the invisible soul.

Of course it may be said that soul is a mere word,
though I thought I had shown that there could be no
such thing as a mere word, a vox et praeterea nihil.
The logicians will, of course, trot out their centaur
and defy us to prove that centaur is anything but
a mere word. Now, whatever the etymology of
centaur may be, whatever its original purpose may
have been, whether cloud or anything else, we are
quite willing to admit that there is no such word in
rerum natura as a horse with a human head. But
what exists in rerum natura are horses and men, and
Greek poets had as much right to combine the two as
the Assyrians to assign wiDgs to bulls. The com-
bination does not exist, but the two things combined
exist and are brought by the senses to the knowledge
of man. This combining of things by themselves
incompatible, and giving a fanciful name to such

362

LAST ESSAYS.

combination, is a very different process from selecting
any natural object and taking away from it all that
can be taken away without actually destroying it.
To use a practical illustration, we may take a man
and remove his hair and beard, his nails, his fingers,
hands, arms, feet, and legs, and yet, if he happily
survive the process, as we know he may, the living
stump remains and is still the man. He is not a mere
centaur. In the same way the indistinct embryo,
without as yet feet and legs and fingers and hands
and arms, is something, whatever we may call it— is,
in fact, the man, and not a mere product of fancy.
And so it is with the soul of man, if we simply define
soul as that without which breath, life, feeling, move-
ment, and thought could not be, and which is itself
neither breath, nor life, nor feeling, nor movement,
nor thought : we may not know what this soul is
apart from its living body, but we do know that it
is something — nay, something more real — than any-
thing that has been taken from it, and not a mere
chimera sprung from the poet’s brain.

It may also be said that we have never established
our right to this kind of abstraction, to this violent
process of divesting things of what belongs to them
in rerum natura. This, however, would be tantamount
to saying that we have no right to think. We should
have no longer any right to speak, for instance, ol
a circle, but only of a cart-wheel or a cheese. We
should not be allowed to say that a circle is a figure
in which the radii from the centre to the circumference
must be equal. All we might possibly be allowed to
say would be that a wheelwright has to cut all the
spokes of a cart-wheel of the same length. We could

IS MAN IMMORTAL1?

363

not speak of a centre or a circumference, but only of
an axle and a felly, and such an expression as ‘ must
would have to be altogether tabooed. All such pro-
positions as that the radii of a circle must be equal,
or that the straight line — lineci directa — must be the
shortest or most direct line, would have to be set
aside as merely nominal definitions ; and as there is in
the world of the senses no such thing as a circle or
a straight line — as these, in fact, are mere words we
are told that soul also is nothing but a word. It is
curious that philosophers who hold such opinions do
not see that they themselves would have no arguments
whatever to support them, no words even with which
to form a syllogism, for every syllogism requires
general terms, and every general term would in their
eyes be a mere word or noise. But the world we live
in is not a world of empty noises, but of significant
words. Our knowledge, though it is not a mere
knowledge of words, is certainly knowledge by means
of words. We know nothing, not even a stone, or
a tree, or an animal, except through words. The
senses, which we share with the animal, never give us
an animal, or a tree, or a stone. There is no such
thing as an animal in the whole world. There is not
a quadruped or a bird, there is not even a dog or
a sparrow. All these are the creatures of language.
Nay, our whole world as really known— that is, as
conceived by us — is the creation of language, and in
this sense nothing is truer than that in the beginning
was the word, and all things were made by it, and
without it was not anything made that was made.
This may be called neo-Platonism or Mysticism or
anything else. It is nevertheless the truth, the whole

364

LAST ESSAYS.

truth and nothing but the truth, though no doubt it
requires a certain effort to see through the veil of
words and realize the truth that is behind them and
in them. Many words are certainly imperfect and
misleading, so much so that the whole history of
philosophy may truly be called a battle against words.
The words for soul also have played us many tricks.

A man speaks of his soul, but who or what the
possessor of a soul could be we ask in vain. The soul
maj7' be said to possess the ego — not the ego the
soul. If spirit is used for soul, people have actually
maintained that they have seen spirits, and ghosts
are recognized as visible spirits or souls. It is difficult
to frame a word for soul. The best name I know is
the Sanskrit name at man, which means self. This
atman is very carefully distinguished from the aham,
or ego. It lies far beyond it, and, while the aham has
a beginning and an end and is the result of circum-
stances, the atman is not, but is and always has been
and always will be itself only. We must accept this
atman, this self, or the soul, as something of which
we know that it is. This may seem very little, but
to be is really far more important and far more
wonderful than to breathe, to live, to feel, or to think.
Thinking, feeling, living, and breathing are impossible
without a being. Being may be called the poorest,
but it is at the same time the most marvellous concept
of our whole mind, for the soul, being that which
is ( ovala ), is at the same time that without which
nothing else can be. It is the sine qua non of all we
are, we see, we hear, we apprehend and comprehend.
It is not our body nor our breath, nor our life nor our
heart, nor what is most difficult to give up— our mind

IS MAN IMMORTAL?

365

and intellect. It is simply that in which all these
reside — that, in fact, in which we move and have our
being.

We can now take a second step. If what we mean
by soul, unknown as it may be otherwise, is at all
events known to be not the body, on what possible
ground could we make the assertion that the soul is
mortal? Mortal is applicable to the body only, for
it means originally decaying, crumbling, falling to
pieces. Mor-bus, illness, is that which wears the body ;
mors, death, that which wears it out and utterly
dissolves it. This we can see with our eyes, but no
experience has ever taught us that the soul, or what
we mean by soul, is worn out, does ever decay or
crumble or dissolve. The breath may fail, the body
may die, the intellect also may grow weak, but of the
soul we can never say that it is at any time more or
less than it has always been. What right have we,
then, to call the soul mortal and to apply a term such
as mortal, which is peculiar to the body, to that which
is not the body, the soul ? Whatever else we may or
may not predicate of the soul, our very opponents
would not allow us to create such a centaur as a mortal
soul, and if we are not allowed to call the soul mortal
why should we not call it nonmortal or immortal?
To deny the nonmortality of the soul would be the
same as to deny its existence. But all this would
probably not satisfy those who want to be certain not
only that the soul cannot die, but who wish to know
how it will fare with it after the decay and death of
its present mortal body. They want, in fact, to know
what they know quite well that they cannot know,
and were not meant to know. Let us remember that

366

LAST ESSAYS.

we do not know what the soul was before this life — -
nay, even what it was during the first years of our
childhood. Yet we believe on very fair evidence that
what we call our soul (though it is not ours, but we
are his) existed from the moment of our birth. What
ground have we, then, to doubt that it was even before
that moment ? To ascribe to the soul a beginning on
our birthday would be the same as to claim for it an
end on the day of our death, for whatever has a begin-
ning has an end. If, then, in the absence of any other
means of knowledge, we may take refuge in analogy,
might we not say that it will be with the soul hereafter
as it has been here, and that the soul, after its earthly
setting, will rise again, much as it rose here ? This is
not a syllogism, but it is analog}7, and in a cosmos
like ours analogy has a right to claim some weight,
at all events in the absence of any proof to the
contrary.

Soon, however, follows another question, a question
which has probably been asked by every human
heart. Granting that what we mean by the word
soul cannot, without self-contradiction, be mortal,
will that soul be itself, know itself, and will it know
others whom it has known before? For the next
life, it is said, would not be worth living if the soul
did not recollect itself, recognize not only itself, but
those also whom it has known and loved on earth —
in fact, if it did not retain its mundane experience,
its knowledge of Greek, Latin, and English. Here,
too, analogy alone can supply some kind of answer.

‘ It will be hereafter as it has been ’ is not, in the
absence of any evidence to the contrary, an argument
that can be treated with contempt, least of all by

IS MAN IMMORTAL ?

367

those who hold that all our knowledge must be
positive, must be based on past experience. In this
case, it is true that we have had but one experience ;
but is that any reason why, because it is unique, we
should reject it? Our soul here may be said to have
risen without any recollection of itself and oi the
circumstances of its former existence. It may not
even recollect the circumstances of its first days on
earth, but it has within it the consciousness of its
eternity, and the conception of a beginning is as
impossible for it as that of an end, and if souls were
to meet again hereafter as they met in this life, as
they loved in this life, without knowing that they
had met and loved before, would the next life be so
very different from what this life has been here on
earth — would it be so utterly intolerable and really
not worth living?

Personally I must confess to one small weakness.
I cannot help thinking that the souls towards whom
we feel drawn in this life are the very souls whom we
knew and loved in a former life, and that the souls
who repel us here, we do not know why, are the souls
that earned our disapproval, the souls from which we
kept aloof in a former life. But let that pass as what
others have a perfect right to call it — a mere fancy.
Only let us remember that if our love is the love of what
is merely phenomenal, the love of the body, the kind-
ness of the heart, the vigour and wisdom of the intellect,
our love is the love of changing and perishable things,
and our soul may have to grope in vain among the
shadows of the dead. But if our love, under all its
earthly aspects, was the love of the true soul, of what
is immortal and divine in every man and woman, that

368

LAST ESSAYS.

love cannot die, but will find once more what seems
beautiful, true, and lovable in worlds to come as in
worlds that have passed. This is very old wisdom,
but we have forgotten it. Thousands of years ago an
Indian sage, when parting from his wife, told her in
plain words: ‘We do not love the husband in the
husband, nor the wife in the wife, nor the children in
the children. What we love in them, what we truly
love in everything, is the eternal atman, the immortal
self,’ and, as we should add, the immortal God, for the
immortal self and the immortal God must be one.

INDEX.

ABSTRACTION, no right to,
362.

Abufazl, 328-330.

— quoted, 330.

Accommodation question, 3 1 6.
Adam the Monk, 310.

— and Pragma, 313.

African prayers, 45-47.

Agni, hymn to, 62.

Agnoia, 349, 351, 353.

Agnosticism, 356.

Agnostics, 347, 349.

Afsdpos, 80, 81.

Aithiops, 79, 80.

Ak, 6, 7.

Akbar knew nothing of the Veda,

329-

Akbar’s religious council, 328,

335-

Jews and Christians invited,

329-

Alb, Dalmat:c, &c., 27.

Alger, doctrine of a future life,

. 357-

Ame, 360.

Amitabha, endless light, 305.
Anaxagoras, 352.

Ancestral spirits, worshipped in
Africa, 45.

Andaman islanders, 91.

Angels, belief in, 250.

Animism, jo, 266, 267.

Ant-gold, 86, 87.

Anthropology, 15, 19.
Anthropomorphism, 10.

Arabia, Christianity in, 244.

IT. B

Arawyakas, or forest-books, 113.
Archaeology, 15.

Arius, 327.

Aryan family of speech, 5, 6.

— religions, II.

Asoka and Buddhism, 13 1.

— sent missionaries to Kashmir

and Kabul, 308.

Asoka’s pillars, 233, 234.

— Council, 327.

only Buddhists present, 327.

Assyrian and Babylonian prayer*,

66-68.

Atheism, 340.

Atman, or self, 114.

— best word for soul, 364.

BADAONI, 328.

Barnacle geese, 1 7 1 .

Barrows, Dr., 324, 333.

Being and Not Being, 20.

Bible, which religion has the
largest, 222-224.

Blavatsky, Madame, 100-111,124,
i36, 156, 157.

— her miracles, 103, 126, 138,

174-

— her his Unveiled, 104, 135,

1.37-

— her ignorance of Greek, 104.

and eastern languages, 104.

Bonney, President, 324.

Book religions, 337.

Books burnt in China, 273.

Bopp, 5, 20.

Bos w or th Sm i th ’s Mohammed , 2 4 2 .

370

INDEX.

Boxer conspiracy, 321.

Brahman life, four stages of, TI2-
ii3-

Brinton, Dr., 13.

Brinton, Myths of the New World,
49. ‘

Browning quoted, 326.

Buddha condemns mysticism, 122-
1 24.

— recognizes miracles, 125.

— little dogma in his teaching,

128.

— golden statue of, 308.

Buddha’s death, 144, 145, 159.
its esoteric meaning, 144,

169.

Buddha’s birthplace now dis-
covered, 233-235.

shown to Asoka, 236.

Buddhism, 70.

— does not allow prayer as peti-

tion, 71.

— and Christianity, likenesses be-

tween, 99.

— change of Brahmanism into,

121.

— numerous sects in, 128, 129.

- — in China, 285, 308, 309.

- — ■ why divided, 304.

— with Sanskrit Canon, 307.
the one accepted in China,

3o7-

— spread of, in Asia, 308.

— and Taoism, 309.

Buddhist priests in Oxford, 71.

— monks, 1 21.

— Canon, complete catalogue of,

165-377.

— teachers in China, 300-301.

— Canon, 302.

— monasteries in China, 303.

— MSS. in China, 303, 304.

— Council, the fourth, 306.

— monasteries in China, 314.

— missionaries in third century,

322.

— pilgrims in fifth century, 322.
Buddhists from India in China,

302-303.

— persecutions of, in China, 304.

Bilhler, Dr., 239.

Bulgarian troubles, 243.

Bunyiu Nanjio, his catalogue of
the Chinese Tripitaka, 302.
Buriates, price paid by, for Bud-
dhist Canon, 226.

Burnouf, 238.

CALDWELL, Bishop, 13.
Centaur, 361.

Cerinthus, 346.

Chandragupta, 238.

Chinese religions, II.

— religion closely connected with

language, 262.

naturalistic origin of, 262,

269.

■ — ■ religious sects in, 320.

Christ, Mohammed’s view of, 24S,
249.

— lived Christianity, 257.
Christian prayers, 78.

— Buddhists, 99.

— missionaries in China, 309.

introduced matches, 309.

at Akbar’s court, 329.

— doctrines in Persia, India, &c.,

312.

— settlements in Asia in seventh

century, 322.

Christianity, 70.

— liked by Buddhists in China,

3°9-

Christians annihilated in China,
3T4-

— expelled from China, 317.

— persecuted, 318.

Clarke, Freeman, his Ten Great
Religions, 47.

Codrington, Dr., 41.

Confucianism, 54, 269.

— prayers, 54-56, 57.

— belief in intermediate spirits, 54.
Confucius, 259, 261.

— did not found a new religion,

261.

— teaching of, 270-277.

— latinized form of, 278 n.

— and Lao-tze, 282.

agree in several points, 2S7.

INDEX.

371

Congresses, international, 213.
Csoma Korosi and his Tibetan
Catalogue, 177.

Ctesias, 87.

— his tales, SS, 91.

Cute, acute, 6.

Cuvier, 3.

DARWIN, 19-22.

— great influence of, 23.
Darwinism, 22.

Dayananda Sarasvati, 102, 107.
Decrees of God, 253.

Deeds, world of, 337, 338.

Devas, or Brights, 14.

Docta Jgnorantia, 349.

Douglas, Mr. Archibald, 184.

— his disproof of Notovitch’s

story, 185-193.

— his visit to Himis, 185, 190.
Dugald Stewart, 252.

Dvi-ga, twice-born, 341.

Dyaus, Zeus, 38.

EGYPTIAN PRAYERS, 68, 69.

— Maftt, 291 n.

Ekagarbhas, the, 89.

Elephant, War of the, 244.
Epoche, 349.

Esoteric Buddhism, 100-11 1, 124-
152.

— numbers many converts, 106.

— Sinnett’s explanation of, 149.
Ethnic religions, 40, 41.
Ethnology, 15.

Evans, Mr. Arthur, quoted, 17.
Evolution, 18.

FA-HIAN, 303.

Ferrars, Mr., and the Kutho-daw,
228.

Fetishism, 266-269.

— progress from, 10.
Fetish-worshippers, 9.

Filial piety, 273-276.

Fo, or Buddha, 300.

Forest life, 113, 114, 116.
Forscher, forsehung, 37.

Fiihrer, Dr., 233.

Future life in Kordn, 254, 255.

GALILEO, 347.

Gautama Buddlia, 117, 120.

— his teaching presupposes Brah-

manism, 118.

George, Henry, 29, 31.

Ghosts and spirits, difference be-
tween, 41.

Gifford Lectures, 355.

Gnostic, 346, 349.

Gnosticism, 356.

God, existence of, 340.

Godhead, unity of the, 248, 249.
Gods of nature, 39, 40.

Goethe, 18.

Golden rule found in Confucianism,
270.

Gordon, General, 320.

Greek fables borrowed from India,
82.

— and Roman prayers, 64-66.
Grimm, 5, 20.

HAHN, Dr., 13.

Hale, Horatio, 13.

Heaven, will of, 272.

Hegel, 18, 160, 359.

Hekataeos, 82.

Helmholtz, 22.

Hermann, Gottfried, 19.

— his doctrine of man’s creation,

19.

Herodotus, 83.

— his travellers’ tales, 83, 84.

— in Persia, 86.

Herrada and Alfara, 315.

Himis monastery, 173, 178, 180,

1 81, 204-206.

Hinayana in China, 287.

— or Pali canon, 304.

denies a personal God, 304.

— changed to Mahayana, 305,307.

— Buddhists, 305, 307.

have no chronology, 306.

— — in Ceylon, Burmah, and

Siam, 307.

Hiouen-thsang, 232, 234, 235,
3°3, 3!2-

Iiissarlik, Schliemann at, 16, 17.
Historical and theoretical schools,
4-17.

B b 2

372

INDEX.

Historical or analytic school, 5, II,
13, 14, 15. 16, 17, 20, 21, 23.
— great advantage of, 25.
Hoei-seng and Song-yan, 303.
Hoernle, Dr., 323.

Hospitality not enjoined in the
Kings, 318.

Hsian-fu, monument of, 310.
Hsiao-King, the, 272, 274, 278.
Humboldt, A. and \V. , 20.

Hume, 359.

IMMORTAL, 358.

Immortality of the soul, 340.
Index verborum of Rig-veda, 228.
India, travellers’ tales of, 87-92.
— mysterious wisdom in, 92, 96,

97-

Individual religions, 41, 69.
Infinite, knowledge of the, 14.
Inspiration, 28, 29.

Inspired books, belief in, 250, 251.
Interjections the ultimate facts of
language, 8.

Islam, many sects in, 247.

Issa, or Jesus, 176.

I-tsing, 303, 312.

JACOLLIOT, La Bible dans
VInde, 94-97.

— quoted, 105.

Jesuits in China under Ricci, 315.

— tutors to Crown Prince, 316.

— their work condemned by the

Pope, 316, 317.

Jewish merchants in India, 176.
dews in Arabia, 244.

Joldan’s declaration, 193.
Judgement, day of, 252.

Julien, Stanislas, 238, 269.

KALACHAKRA, wheel of time,

3°4-

Kaudjur, 177, 236.

Kanerkes, 307.

Kauishka, King, 306.

Kant, 19, 350-359^

Kant’s Critique, 348.
Kapilavastu, 231-236.

Karma, 154.

Khotan, chief seat of Buddhism,
308.

Kings, the Five, 259.

Klamaths, the, 343.

Knowledge, our, 363.
Konakamana, stftpa of, 234.

Kordn, cruelty not sanctioned by
the, 244.

— six articles of faith in the,

247-253-

Kutho-daw, 227-229.

— alphabet of, 227.

Kynokephaloi, the, 91.

LAMA, of Himis, 191, 193, 194,
198, 209.

— of Wokka and Lamayuru, 194.
Language, Chinese religion closely

connected with, 262.

— and thought, sciences of, 354.
Lao-tz^, 278, 279.

— legends about, 283.

Legge, Dr., on Chinese atheism,
263.

— on origin of Chinese religion,

262, 269.

— his translations in Sacred Books

of the East, 278.

— on the Tao-teh-King, 285.
Leumann, Dr., 323.

Levy, M. Sylvain, his lecture on
Buddha’s birthplace, 231.
Liddell, Dr., 2.

Locke, 359.

Logic, 353.

Logos, 284, 343-345, 352, 353-
355-

— substitute for Tao, 288.

Love, if true, is immortal, 367,

368.

Lumbinl, parts of, 232, 235.

MAHATMAS, of Tibet, 107,109-
iii, 140, 158, 159.

— meaning of the word, ill, 14S.
Mahayana,or Northern Buddhism,

little known, 131.

— in China, 287.

— admits a personal God, 305.

— why so called, 306.

INDEX.

373

Mahayana, the Buddhism of China,

3°7- .

— Buddhism in China, Turkestan,

&c., 307, 30S.

Mancliu dynasty, 316, 320.
Marcion, 346.

Marco Polo, 91.

Matanga, miracles of, 305.
Melanesian prayers, 41-44.
Mexican prayers, 49-51.

Mingti, the Emperor, 300, 301.
308.

— sent officials to India to study

Buddhism, 302.

Miracles, 340.

Missionaries in China, mistakes
made by, 319.

Missions from China to India, 302,
303-

Mitre, Stole, &c., 27, 28.
Mohammed, character of, 257.
Mohammed’s wives and advisers,
245-

Mohammedanism, 70, 74, 75.

— early, 244.

and Christianity, 244, 247.

Morbus, 365.

Mors, 365.

Mortal, 365.

Mosaism, 69, 70.

— prayer, 76, 77.

Muller, Johannes, 20, 21.

— Otfried, 20.

Mysticism, 363.

NAGARGUNA, founder of the
Mahayana, 306, 307.

Nagas, 306, 307.

National religions, 40, 53.
Nationalized land, 30.

Nature worship in Chinese, 263,
269.

Neo-Platonism, 363.

Nestorian monument, 310-312.
Nestorians in China, 310.

Nicaea, Council of, 327.

Niebuhr, 5, 20.

Nirvana, 118.

North American Indian prayers,
48.

Notovitch, M., and his Vie iu-
connue de Jems- Christ, 173.

— the MSS. he saw, 174.

— what the Life asserts, 175.

— his broken leg, 174-180, 190,

196.

— untruth of his story, 182, 190-

193, 202, 209.

— his perversion of the Bible

story, 199, 200, 207, 208.
Nous, 352.

OKEN, 18, 20.

Olcott, Colonel, 126, 158.

Old Boy, name for Lao-tzd, 279.
Old and New Testaments, number
of words, &c., in, 232, 233.
Olopun, 312.

One God, belief in, in China, 268.
Origen, 342, 344.

Oronyha Teka, 211.

PALI Canon, what it consists of,
225.

Rhys Davids on, 226.

Spence Hardy on, 226.

Chinese translation of, 226.

PawLitantra, the, 81, 82.

Papuan prayer, 48.

Parlarthas, meanings of words, 360 .
Parliament of Religions, 214, 324,
329-

all religions represented,

33L 332-

no discussion at, 336.

PA S, 6.

Pec-u, cattle, 6.

Peel, Sir R., 64.

Peripatetics, 352.

Peruvian prayers, 49, 57.
Phenomenal world, 349-352.

— knowledge, 351.

Philosophy is philosophy of Lan-
guage, 358.

Plato, 352.

— and Aesopian fables, 81-82.
Polygamy, 255, 256.

Pope’s false claims in China, 318.
Prar/na, his translations from
Sanskrit into Chinese, 313.

374

INDEX.

Prayer, meaning of, 36.

— belief in the efficacy of, 39.

— wheels, 7 1 j 72-
Prayers to the departed, 37.

— to the powers of nature, 38.

— for rain, 38.

— and sacrifice, 56.

Precarious, 37.

Precious ones of Buddhism, 287.
Prichard, Dr., 20.

Proper names, 80.

Protoplasm, 18.

Psyche, 360.

Pure Holy Ones, 286.

Puseyism, 22.

QAT and MAEAWA, 44-45-

RED AND YELLOW MONKS
of Ladakh, 197.

Religion, three classes of, 40.

— number of followers of each,

219-221.

— Chinese idea of, 301.

— a universal, 339.

— fundamental doctrines, 341.
Religions with and without Sacred

Books, 11.

— of Red Indians, Africans, and

Australians, 12.

— number of, 331.

— all of Eastern origin, 331.

— feelings changed about alien,

333-335-

— divisions in, 339.

Rdmusat on theTao-teh-King, 284.
Renan, M., 179.

Reville, M., 49.

Rhys Davids, 238.

Ricci, Jesuit father, 315, 319.
Rig-veda, prayers in, 56-63.

Rita, 290-293.

Roman See, its pretensions in
China, 314.

SACRED BOOKS, relative age
of, 217-219.

of the East, 1, 2, 132, 133,

334. 337. 338-

of purely historical interest^.

Sacred Books of the East, what use
to the West, 32-35, 216.

none written by the founder

of a religion, 338.

St. Clement, 342-344.

Salisbury, Lord, 2.

Sama?ia or Nramawa, 119, 120.
Savfcrny, 5, 20.

Schelling, 18.

Schliemann, Dr., 323.
Schopenhauer on prayer, 63, 102.
Semitic religions, 11, 70.

Sdnarfc, M., 238, 239, 323.
Sensuous intuition, 350.

Shang-Ti, 264, 268.

Shapirah’s MS. of the Pentateuch,

93-

Shft, or four philosophies, 259.
Si-gnan-fu, 312, 313.

Sinnett, Mr. A. P., 134, 160.

— claims to be the founder of

Esoteric Buddhism, 135-138.

— his appeal to native scholars,

161.

Skylax in India, 82, 90.

Socrates, 348.

Soul, 358.

— definition of, 359-366.

• — words for, 359.

— a mere word, 361.

— - possesses the ego, 364.

— atman, best word for, 364.

— without beginning or end, 366.

— will it recognize other souls

hereafter? 366, 367.

Spencer, Herbert, 21.

Spirits of Nature and of the
departed, 266, 267.

Stanislas Julien, 238, 269.
Stanley, Dean, 26, 27.

Strong Buffalo, 21 1.

Sukhavati, paradise, 305.
Surplice, 26.

TAE-PINGS, rebellion of the,
320, 321.

TAN, 6.

Tandjur, 177, 178, 226.

Tao, doctrine of, 2S3, 288-297.

— or God, 289.

INDEX.

375

Tao, or Bits,, 290, 293.

— in nature, 293, 294.

— in the individual, 294-296.

— applied to political life, 296-

299.

Taoism, 278-300.

— modern forms of, 279, 280.

— and the Emperor WO, 2 So,

281.

— worship of spirits, 281.

— corruption of, 281.

— when established, 285.

— debased, 299.

Taoist temple, images in, 2S6.
Tao-teh-King, 279, 283, 285, 288,
299.

— R^musat on the, 284.

Ta-tsin, monastery of, 310-313.
Terai of Nepal, 236, 237, 239.
Te-tsung separates the Buddhist

monks from Christians, 310.

— Emperor, 313.

Th changed to s, 80.

Theoretical or synthetic school, 5,

8, 12, 15, 17, 21, 23.
Theosophy, 141-153.

Thymos, 360.

Tien, Chinese, 264.

— word for heaven, 265.

— Supreme Lord, 268.

Travellers’ tales, 83-85.

Trinity, false doctrine of, time of

Mohammed, 246, 247, 252.
Tripii'aka or Southern Buddhist
Canon, 130.

Tripifaka, written in Pali, 225.

— or Three Baskets, 225.

Turkey, intercourse with, in

Elizabeth’s reign, 242.

Turks, no drinking among, 241.

— morality among, 241.

— European feeling against, 242.

— and Frederick the Great, 243.
Tylor, Dr., 47.

UPANISHADS, 115.

Urschleim, 18.

VALENTINUS, 346.

Vedanta doctrines called secret,

98.

Virchow, 24.

WADDELL, Surgeon-Major, and
Kapilavastu, 233, 239.
Werden, das, 18.

Wilford, Lieut., his articles on
Indian learning, 93, 94.
Williamson, Dr., and the Nes-
torian monument to Hsian-fu,
311-

Word and thought, inseparable,

359-

XAVIER, Franfois, 314.

YA(?UR and Sama-vedas, 59.
Yellow Terror, 31 1.

ZOROASTRIANISM, 70,72-74.

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THE TREASURY OF BOTANY.
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32 LONGMANS AND CO.’S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.

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34 LONGMANS AND CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.

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